Some people are claiming that ISIS is behind the shooting in Canada on Wednesday, and the theory was only furthered by an ISIS-affiliated Twitter account posting a picture that allegedly shows one of the gunmen.
The gunman killed the soldier before entering Parliament and firing more shots.
The gunman, who was identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was shot dead.
Justin Ling, a freelance journalist who was in the Canadian Parliament when the shooting happened, told MSNC that the attack was “obviously inspired” by a radical ideology, likely ISIS, which recently threatened an attack on Canada.
He said that it seems the attacks on Wednesday are connected to the situation on Monday where a Canadian soldier was killed by a man who was “radicalized.”
“I think we are all operating on the assumption. There was reports, obviously unconfirmed reports, that one of the gunmen was wearing an Arabic style scarf, a kaffiyeh. Given the coordinated nature of the attack it seems to be obviously inspired by radical ideology. I think it’s obviously whether or not they were coordinated with the attacks on Monday, it was obviously inspired by it,” Ling said.
“I know, for a fact the security intelligence agency had been monitoring up to 90 individuals they believed were radicalized and capable of carrying out attacks. They told us that the man from Monday was one of those 90, I think it’s clear that however many there were today were on there too.”
“We haven’t [gotten the information confirmed], but we’ve been told there was repeated warnings from ISIS and ISIS members over the past weeks that the attack on Canada was imminent and they would be targeting uniformed personnel and that the attack would happen today,” he said.
One witness, construction worker Scott Walsh, told Reuters that he heard a gunshot, and then saw a man dressed in black with a scarf over his face running towards parliament with a gun.
A Canadian parliament official described the gunman to BBC as looking “Arabian” with “long hair and a small beard.”
