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Ottawa Terrorist Threatened Soldiers in Pre-Attack Video

March 6, 2015

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Friday released the video shot by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the terrorist who killed Cpl Nathan Cirillo and terrorized Parliament Hill in Ottawa in October.

The video, made just minutes before the attack, was hastily recorded from Zehaf-Bibeau’s cellphone in his car.

In the video, he says his attack is to show soldiers they are “not even safe in your own land,” according to The Toronto Star.

“Canada’s officially become one of our enemies by fighting and bombing us and creating a lot of terror in our countries and killing us and killing our innocents,” Zehaf-Bibeau says calmly in the video.

He mentions Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Ottawa’s decision to join the U.S.-led coalition striking the Islamic State in Iraq.

“To those who are involved and listen to this movie, this is in retaliation for Afghanistan and because Harper wants to send his troops to Iraq,” the video clip begins, according to The Toronto Star.

He ends by saying, “Thank you.”

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson told a parliamentary committee on public safety they had debated the video’s release, weighing the public interest against the fear that the video would be used for terrorist propaganda.

“The video speaks for itself. It is what it is,” Paulson said.

Paulson said 18 seconds from the video were edited out and not shown Friday — 13 seconds from the beginning and five from the end.

Zehaf-Bibeau’s motives have been dissected in the aftermath of his crimes and his attack is often cited by leaders worldwide as an example of the threat posed by the Islamic State (ISIS), which controls parts of Iraq and northern Syria and has called for attacks on Western targets.

While there is no public evidence that 32-year-old had a formal connection to the group or its members, he appears to share the same grievances espoused by ISIS.

The attack in Ottawa came just two days after a 25-year-old who converted to Islam rammed his car into two soldiers in the Quebec town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and was shot dead by police. One of the soldiers later died.

Paulson told the committee that the RCMP was not concerned “what kind of a terrorist Zehaf-Bibeau was, or if he was a particularly intelligent, sophisticated, influential or personally disciplined terrorist.”

The investigation he said is focusing on: “What was he doing and why was he doing it.”

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)

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