[CBSNEWS] Law enforcement and U.S. government sources told CBS News the suspect calls himself Michael Abdul Zehaf-Bibeau and was born in Quebec in 1982. He is from British Columbia and recently converted to Islam. Sources said he had a history of drug addiction prior to his conversion.No further information was available on Bibeau's apparent contacts with people in Syria, but hundreds of Westerners have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join Islamic turban groups fighting against the governments of those countries. Many have heeded the call to jihad made in hours and hours of well-crafted propaganda videos posted online by groups including ISIS.
"We were working on the statue, and I heard a bunch of pops. I look across the street and there's a man with a rifle shooting at a bunch of people," a construction worker who witnessed the incident said.
Emergency responders performed CPR but Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was killed.
A dash cam video allegedly shows the suspect getting into a vehicle with no license plates, holding what appears to be a weapon. Multiple eye witnesses describe the man as dressed in black with a scarf over his face.
"Let there be no misunderstanding: We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a national address Wednesday evening.
He called the shooter a terrorist.
"This week's events are a grim reminder that Canada is not immune to the types of terrorist attacks we have seen elsewhere around the world," Harper said.
"We have a tremendous country, if you travel the world, we got it pretty darn good here, and I hope this doesn't change it," parliamentarian John McKay said.
This is the second violent attack on Canadian soil this week.
On Monday, a radical jihadi deliberately ran over two Canadian soldiers, killing one. That suspect was also shot and killed following a police chase.