The deadly shooting of a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada, is the latest in a growing number of lone-wolf attacks by radicalized Islamic extremists across the world.
The soldier, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, was gunned down on Wednesday at point-blank range by 32-year-old petty criminal Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a recent convert to Islam, who was armed with a rifle and dressed in black, his face half-covered with a scarf. He was later shot dead.
Here is a list of attacks in the past five years on soldiers and civilians by radicalized Islamic fanatics:
Oct. 20, 2014, Canada
Canadian Martin Rouleau-Couture, 25, drove his car into two Canadian soldiers, killing one of them at a strip mall in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Police shot and killed him after a chase following the attack.
Rouleau-Couture's Facebook postings had praised the violence enacted by the Islamic State terror group, while he'd also made anti-Semitic comments and denounced Christianity,
The New York Times reported. He was said to be one of 90 people that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been monitoring for possible terror activities.
Sept. 25, 2014, Oklahoma
Islamic convert Alton Nolen, 30, beheaded a female co-worker and stabbed another woman at a food processing plant in Moore, Oklahoma, before he was shot and wounded by a company executive.
Nolen, 30, who had recently tried to convert colleagues to Islam, had been fired moments before his rampage. He has been charged with killing Colleen Hufford, 54, and stabbing Traci Johnson, 43, who were attacked randomly at Vaughan Foods.
Sept. 18, 2014, Australia
Police in Sydney thwarted a plot to carry out beheadings in Australia by Islamic State (ISIS) supporters when they detained 15 people after raiding a dozen homes. An arrest warrant was issued for Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a 33-year-old former Sydney nightclub bouncer who's now believed to be an Islamic State lieutenant.
Eight days later, an 18-year-old man stabbed two counterterrorism officers near Melbourne before he was killed by one of the officers. The teenager was a known terror suspect who had been spotted waving an Islamic State flag at a shopping center, according to the Times.
May 24, 2014, Belgium
Three people were killed and another injured when a gunman opened fire at the Jewish museum in Brussels. A week later, French police arrested suspected jihadist Mehdi Nemmouche, who had recently traveled to Syria.
French journalist Nicolas Henin, who was held captive for months in 2013 by extremists in Syria, identified Nemmouche as one of his captors and recalled that he had a violent and sadistic personality, the Times reports.
May 22, 2013, U.K.
Islamic extremists Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajodo ran over British soldier Lee Rigby with their car in south London, then hacked him to death with knives and a cleaver in front of horrified passers-by.
The pair, both of Nigerian descent, claimed they were acting as "soldiers of Islam" and had carried out their heinous act to "achieve martyrdom." Adebolajodo, 30, had ties to al-Qaida, and had once been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of planning to join the Somalian extremist group Shabab.
March 22, 2012, France
Radical Islamist Mohammed Merah, a self-proclaimed al-Qaida jihadist, killed three French paratroopers and later shot dead a rabbi and three Jewish children outside a Jewish day school in southern France. He was killed after a standoff with police.
Merah, a French-Algerian dual citizen, had spent time in prison and was believed to have traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan for combat training with Islamist fighters, the Times reports. He'd been on a French watch list for years.
Nov. 5, 2009, Texas
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim whose Palestinian parents came to the U.S. from Jordan, shot and killed 13 soldiers and wounded 32 others at the Fort Hood army base in Texas during a deranged rampage.
Hasan, a psychiatrist, claimed he went on his killing spree out of hatred for U.S. military actions in the Middle East. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
June 1, 2009, Arkansas
Tennessee-born Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who had traveled to Yemen in 2007, opened fire on two soldiers outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one soldier and wounding another, according to the Times.
Muhammad, who claimed he was a member of a Yemen-based al-Qaida affiliate, said he was angry over the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the attack was in revenge for the killing of Muslims by American troops.
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