NEW YORK, October 24 (RIA Novosti) — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is using a terror strike on the nation's parliament to clamp down on personal liberties, political analyst Reese Erlich told RIA Novosti.
"The killing of the Canadian soldier in Ottawa was a tragic, criminal act. We don't know the motives of the killer. Yet Prime Minister Harper is already using the incident to call for more, repressive anti-terrorism laws," Erlich said Thursday.
"The governments of Canada and the United States are seeking to instill fear and justify further military aggression in Iraq and Syria," Erlich, the author of Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect, stated.
On Wednesday morning, lone gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, shot dead a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa and then proceeded to Parliament Hill's Center Block where he was killed in a shootout with a policeman.
On October 23, Harper has stated that the attacks on the soldiers in Quebec and the shooting in Ottawa show that Canada lacks immunity from terror attacks. Harper has vowed to strengthen the nation's anti-terrorism laws, and has said Canada will not be intimidated by such violence, nor swayed from its role fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq alongside the US military.
The IS has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, the group extended its attacks to northern and western Iraq and declared an Islamic caliphate on the territories under its control. A US-led coalition is currently carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq.
