Pentagon, DHS not increasing security after Ottawa shooting

The departments of Defense and Homeland Security do not plan on increasing security following Wednesday’s deadly shooting around Canada’s Parliament building, according to officials.

{mosads}“There’s been no increased security,” a Defense official told The Hill.

A DHS official said the agency “continues to monitor the evolving situation” in Ottawa.

However, “at this time, there is no specific reporting to indicate that ongoing events in Canada pose a threat to the United States,” the DHS official added.

“Our security posture, which always includes a number of measures both seen and unseen, will continue to adapt appropriately to protect the American people,” the official said.

A masked gunman shot and killed a soldier at the Ottawa war memorial before entering the parliament building. He was shot dead by the legislative body’s sergeant-at-arms.

Earlier this week, another man ran over two Canadian soldiers in Quebec, killing one and injuring the other.

Suspects in both incidents were reportedly recent converts to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The incidents caused some U.S. government agencies, including NORAD and the FBI, to increase their “alert posture.”

In a nationally televised address, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic militants, saying “Canada will never be intimidated.”

President Obama spoke with Harper by phone on Wednesday afternoon to offer support.

“We’re all shaken by it,” the president said later.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the deadly shooting is “yet another reminder that homegrown terrorism is a real threat, not only to our country but to our allies as well.”

Regardless of whether individuals “train in Syria or Iraq and then return home, or are inspired and recruited over the internet while in their basements, their danger to society is the same,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The U.S. “must wage a robust effort here at home to combat violent Islamist extremism by working with local communities to intervene when we see signs of it, fighting against online Islamist propaganda, and providing ways to stop individuals lured into the ‘jihadi cool’ subculture before they act,” McCaul said.