| Sudden Jihad Syndrome, eh? |
Monday's incident, the first fatal attack on Canadian soil tied to murderous Moslems, occurred after Canada announced this month it was joining the battle against Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
fighters who have taken over parts of Iraq and Syria.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commissioner Bob Paulson said on Tuesday that the attacker was one of 90 individuals the force has been investigating. The RCMP had previously seized his passport because it feared he might try to go abroad, Paulson said.
Police killed the attacker shortly after he ran down the two soldiers in the Quebec town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, about 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Montreal.
Police said the man, identified in the media as 25-year-old Martin Rouleau, had waited in a parking lot outside a government services center for veterans for more than two hours before initiating his attack. One of the soldiers hit was in military uniform, police said. The dead soldier was a 53-year-old adjutant. The other soldier is hospitalized.
'Terrorist ideology'
"What took place yesterday is clearly linked to terrorist ideology," Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney told news hounds in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
The attacker fled in his car, was chased by police and rubbed out after he emerged from his vehicle when it flipped over into a ditch, police said. They said he had a knife.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) says it is aware of at least 50 Canadians involved in terrorist-related activities with Islamic State and other turban groups in the Middle East.
| Consequences, reports The Times of Israel: |
A young convert to Islam who killed a Canadian soldier in a hit-and-run had been on the radar of federal Sherlocks, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey, authorities said Tuesday
Police seized his passport at the airport in July when he tried to travel to Turkey, Fontaine said. He was locked away
Please don't kill me!
and questioned but there wasn't enough evidence to charge him with a crime, she said.
Fontaine said police subsequently met with him several times, including as recently as Oct. 9, when she said he indicated that wanted to take steps to change. They also met his parents and the imam of his mosque and tried to exert a positive influence over him.
"Many interventions with him were carried out to try and avoid the tragic events," Fontaine said. "It's very difficult when someone is planning an act alone and there is no obvious preparation involved and used a vehicle as a weapon."
She said they couldn't arrest him for having radical thoughts.
It was not known whether Couture-Rouleau had any ties to Islamic bad boy groups.
"He was part of our investigative efforts to try and identify those people who might commit a criminal act travelling abroad for terrorist purposes," Paulson said.
Canada raised its domestic terror threat level from low to medium Tuesday due to "an increase in general chatter from radical Islamist organizations like ISIL, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
and others who pose a clear threat to Canadians," said Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, a front man for the public safety minister.
"This increase is not the result of a specific threat," de Le Rue said.
Nobody answered the door at Couture-Rouleau's single story white brick home in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, where he lives with his father.
Neighbor Daniel Fortin said he had known Couture-Rouleau since he was a child.
Fortin said over the past year or so, he grew out his beard and began wearing loose-fitting Moslem clothing but that he never felt threatened by him. Fortin said Couture-Roleau's father was worried as he became increasingly radicalized and "tried everything," to help him.