Obama: ‘We’re all shaken’ by Ottawa

President Obama said that the United States does not know whether Wednesday’s shooting near the Canadian parliament building was an act of terrorism.

“Obviously we’re all shaken by it,” Obama said in his first public comments about the shootings in Ottawa that left a Canadian soldier and the gunman dead.

{mosads}The president said he would make sure his national security team was cooperating closely with its counterpart north of the border.

It is “very important for us, I think, to recognize when it comes to dealing with terrorist activity — Canada and the United States have to be entirely in sync,” he said.

He said it is unclear whether the act was “part of a broader network or plan,” but Obama stressed that the incident “emphasizes the degree to which we have to remain vigilant” about terrorism.

Canadian authorities are still investigating the incident, which reportedly began at the national war memorial and progressed into Canada’s parliament building and a nearby shopping center. Police have not yet determined if additional shooters were involved.

Earlier this week, a Canadian soldier was run over and killed by a man whom authorities suggest was a jihadist, which prompted Ottawa to raise its terror alert level. The suspect in Wednesday’s shooting, who was fatally shot by police, had been previously detained, when he sought to fly to Turkey, where many pro-ISIS fighters have crossed the border into Syria.

Obama said his administration was hard at work to examine any possible links.

“Every single day, we have a whole lot of really smart, really dedicated, really hardworking people … who are monitoring risks and making sure we’re doing everything we need to do to protect the American people,” Obama said.

Earlier in the afternoon, the president spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper by phone.

According to the White House, the president used the call to condemn the attacks and offer any assistance Canada needed as it responded to the attacks.

Obama said he also used the call to express “on behalf of the American people our condolences to the family and the Canadian people.”

The White House said earlier in the day that the U.S. had been in touch with its Canadian counterparts “over the past couple of months” about the possibility of terrorist attacks by fighters who had traveled to the Middle East and been radicalized by ISIS. 

But the press secretary stressed that he was not making any conclusions about what had occurred in Canada.

“We’re obviously in the very early stages of determining what happened here,” Earnest said, noting that “Canadian authorities are still responding” to the shooting.

Earnest also said he was unaware of any U.S. agencies raising their terror threat status in the aftermath of the attack.

“The details about the nature of this event are still sketchy, which is not unusual in a chaotic situation like this one,” Earnest said.