Shootout on Parliament Hill

'kin hell, at least three armed crazies launched an attack this morning in Ottawa, all the government buildings are locked down (including mine across the river) and they evacuated the nearby mall. They shot at the soldiers standing guard in front of the war monument (one's in critical state), and somehow managed to penetrate the main Parliament building. One of the freaks' down, another wounded, the third still at large. Someone heard on the radio that shots were fired inside the Rideau centre (mall).

This is following an attack on 2 Canadian soldiers in a Montreal suburb on Monday, which felt like an isolated event. However a direct attack on the Canadian government body is something else entirely. Is this something happening all over the world? Are sleeper cells awakening in answer to the war on the Islamist extremists?

There have been calls by ISIL/ISIS to commit domestic attacks in Canada, the US, the UK, and France. I'm guessing the loonies are listening.

They don't seem too well-organized, otherwise there would be greater results (if you discount the lockdown of a country's government for a day). I mean we're still going about work, what else is there to do? We're stuck inside our offices anyways. But for the MPs it's another story. At least they didn't kill anybody (yet, that soldier's in the ER and there's still a gunman about).

Yikes! Stay safe! Best to the soldiers and their families.

This happens all the time in the U.S. I wouldn't leap to any conclusions yet.

S.

Yeah, they've locked down gov't buildings and are now going through the business of checking every room (that isn't locked) to see where the missing gunman(men) are.

The parliment buildings are super easy to penetrate, tourists can get in there easily enough.

They evacuated the Prime Minister to his home on Sussex and now you have RCMP with assault rifles hiding behind minivans in his driveway aiming their guns at the press. It's weird.

The oddest thing is that there have been all these White House fence jumpers lately but I don't think they had guns. And now in Canada, you have armed people shooting people at the war memorial (which makes zero sense) and potentially storming parliment (ah it's confirmed that parliment was penetrated and a bunch of shots were fired there (30), that's where one of the gunmen was killed.

So that soldier that was standing guard at the war memorial has died. That sucks. Highly honourable job (and he would want honour spelled that way).


The soldier that was killed on Monday in Quebec was killed by a guy who converted to Islam a year ago and had been trying to fly to Turkey when he was arrested a year ago. I don't think there has been any connection between today's attacks and Islam (FBI is now working on figuring out who these people are). It seems like a heck of a coincidence that there have been two lethal attacks on Canadian soliders in two days. This stuff doesn't really happen up here (soldiers dying on home soil that is).

<sarcasm> Looks like those tighter gun control laws are working great. <end sarcasm>

Snarkiness aside, I pray all our Canadian fatties are safe today and the nut jobs attacking your gov't are dealt with quickly and severely with no further loss of life.

turns out that there wasn't any shooting at Rideau mall as suggested earlier in the news. That's a good thing, it's all civilian there.

bfkiller wrote: There have been calls by ISIL/ISIS to commit domestic attacks in Canada, the US, the UK, and France. I'm guessing the loonies are listening.

I had heard that they called on attacks on military and law enforcement within the US but I hadn't heard of them calling for attacks on allies.

This seems pretty clear to be that type of thing though.

Black Barney wrote:

bfkiller wrote: There have been calls by ISIL/ISIS to commit domestic attacks in Canada, the US, the UK, and France. I'm guessing the loonies are listening.

I had heard that they called on attacks on military and law enforcement within the US but I hadn't heard of them calling for attacks on allies.

This seems pretty clear to be that type of thing though.

US and allies.

Guns are great, everybody should have one. Bang bang bang!

More seriously, the incident today was likely the work of just one crazy guy and not part of any vast network of terrorism. Too bad he couldn't have just killed himself instead of killing any innocent people.

ISIS have tasked all true believers to attack all infidels (non believers) with whatever is to hand and have been advising this since Al Qaeda started recommending the same. The net result of that, in the US, was the Boston bombing and in the UK the knife attack on the off duty soldier.

ISIS do not see the US as different from any other non believers so basically any secular country is a target for lone wolves. Neither Al Qaeda nor ISIS have the expertise to train personnel to operate outside their direct fighting areas nor do they have the logistics to do so. A quick read of Inspire (the Al Qaeda journal in English targeted at radicals living in the West) is very interesting. If you access it, do it using a proxy server unless you want the FBI knocking/smashing your door down.

Best option is to task believers to use anything to hand anywhere they think they can cause damage. Their logistical infrastructure outside of Syria/Iraq is non existent so forcing them to take this route. It's actually a sign of weakness not of strength.

My gf works 2 streets away from Parliament and is in the hot zone, they just had this to translate, I have no idea what time she'll be home tonight:

Federal employees in the National Capital Region remain in lockdown and must stay in their respective building.



The City of Ottawa has implemented a lockdown of the downtown core of the city near Parliament Hill. The area impacted is Lyon Street to the west, Rideau Canal to the east and Laurier Avenue to the south and north to the Ottawa River.



Though media have begun reporting some areas have lifted the lockdowns, we recommend employees respect the lockdown until official notice is received.



The City has suspended all City Operations including transportation within the impacted area.

Buses are detoured away from Rideau, Wellington, Albert, Slater and Mackenzie King Bridge.
All service is operating on Laurier.
For east and southbound service at Laurier and Campus Stations, please catch buses on Laurier Avenue as service is not running through these stations.

At this time the CNSC does not have an indication when the lockdown will be lifted. For those with after-work commitments, we advise to start making alternative arrangements.



Staff working outside of the downtown core are asked to respect the lockdown, however, if individuals choose to leave they are requested not to go into the downtown core.

In related news, tonight's Sens-Leafs game in Toronto is postponed.

I wonder if this will be like the Boston thing where they are doing a man-hunt for the other shooter(s).

They say that there were either two or three gunman but only one is dead and none are in custody. At the press briefing half an hour ago, police weren't clear if a suspect was still on the loose.


edit: it's ironic that the gunman was killed by Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers which is mostly a ceremonial role, after the killing of a ceremonial guard (shot in the back no less) at the war memorial.

If it had happened in the U.S. we'd be mobilizing 100,000 men for Iraq and Lindsey Graham would be 24x7 on the news networks talking about how right he is.