Ottawa gunman complained mosque too liberal and inclusive

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The gunman who shot and killed a soldier in plain daylight then stormed Canada's Parliament once complained that Vancouver mosque he attended was too liberal and inclusive, Muslim leaders said Friday.

Assam Rashid, spokesman for the British Columbia Muslim Association, said Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, visited the Masjid Al-Salaam mosque for several months in 2011 before he was told not to come back.

Rashid said the association has been working on a preventive program that focuses on minimizing the effect of terrorist and criminal propaganda in Canada.

Zehaf-Bibeau shot a soldier to death at Canada's national war memorial Wednesday, and was eventually gunned down inside Parliament by the sergeant-at-arms.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called the shooting a terror attack, and the bloodshed raised fears that Canada is suffering reprisals for joining the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria.

The attack in Ottawa cane two days after a man described as an "ISIL-inspired terrorist" ran over two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec, killing one and injuring the other before being shot to death by police. The man had been under surveillance by Canadian authorities, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey.

Police have said Zehaf-Bibeau was not being watched, and the motivations behind his attack remains obscure as officials try to figure out what motivated the shooting. However, a top police official said Zehaf-Bibeau - whose father was from Libya - may have lashed out in frustration over delays in getting his passport.

"I think it was central to what was driving him," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson.

Unlike the Quebec case, Zehaf-Bibeau's passport had not been revoked or his application rejected, but authorities were still investigating whether to grant him one, Paulson said. The wait appeared to weigh heavily on Zehalf-Bibeau.

Court documents obtained by CBS News shows that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the alleged Ottawa shooter, was desperate to be locked in jail. Speaking in a 2011 court hearing, Zehaf-Bibeau told a judge that he wanted to "do another robbery" so he could come to jail. (Watch video)

Abubakir Abdelkareem, who often visited the Ottawa Mission, a homeless shelter downtown where Zehaf-Bibeau stayed in recent weeks, said Zehaf-Bibeau told him he had had a drug problem but had been clean for three months and was trying to steer clear of temptation by going to Libya.

But in the three days before the rampage, "his personality changed completely," Abdelkareem said. He stopped being talkative and sociable and slept during the day, said Abdelkareem, who concluded Zehaf-Bibeau was back on drugs.

Lloyd Maxwell, a shelter resident, said that Zehaf-Bibeau had come to Ottawa specifically to try to get a passport, believing that would be more easily accomplished in the nation's capital.

"He didn't get it, and that made him very agitated," Maxwell said.

In an email to the AP expressing horror and sadness at what happened, Zehaf-Bibeau's mother, Susan Bibeau, said that her son seemed lost and "did not fit in," and that she hadn't seen him for more than five years until having lunch with him last week.

In a brief and tear-filled telephone interview with the AP, Bibeau said that she is crying for the victims of the shooting rampage, not her son.

"Can you ever explain something like this?" said Bibeau, who has homes in Montreal and Ottawa. "We are sorry."

Following the attack in Canada, American law enforcement officials are most worried about potential copycats in the U.S., reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

A homegrown violent extremist, a so-called "lone wolf," may decide to strike out in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or another terror group.

The threat from self-radicalized Americans is not new, but in recent weeks ISIS has cranked up a propaganda campaign urging attacks on U.S. and Western targets wherever and whenever possible.

ISIS praised the Ottawa shooting as an example of what followers can and should do.