OTTAWA - Thousands of mourners lined the streets of the Canadian city of Hamilton for the funeral procession of a soldier killed last week in an attack in the nation's capital.
The funeral procession for Cpl. Nathan Cirillo approaches Christ's Church Cathedral on October 28, 2014 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wailing bagpipes and a solitary drum beat broke a solemn silence as hundreds of soldiers, veterans and police officers marched alongside the flag-draped casket of Corporal Nathan Cirillo to a cathedral in his hometown.
His bereaved family, including his six-year-old son wearing his father's beret, also participated in the funeral procession, viewed on television by millions nationwide.
Cirillo was fatally shot last week while standing watch at the War Memorial in Ottawa. His attacker, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, then stormed into parliament and exchanged fire with police before being shot dead.
The attack was one of two targeting Canadian soldiers just days apart. Another soldier, Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, was killed on October 20 in a hit and run east of Montreal. He will be laid to rest on Saturday.
Both attacks came as Canada deployed fighter jets to join US-led air strikes on the Islamic State group in Iraq. Police say both assailants were converts to Islam with alleged extremists views.
"Two of our own have made the ultimate sacrifice, and we celebrate their lives and mourn their deaths," said Governor General David Johnston.
In his eulogy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the war memorial is a reminder that "freedom is never free. It has been earned by the soldier and then donated to all of us."
"Most of us can never truly understand the significance to a soldier of the simple act of standing reverently on guard at that place," he said.
"Corporal Cirillo, who felt the calling of a soldier when he was just a 13-year-old cadet, he understood. He knew what he was protecting and what he was preserving. He died protecting and preserving it."
- Kerry lays wreath -
In Ottawa, visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier where Cirillo fell, in his honor.
Washington's top diplomat said he came to offer condolences and express America's "deep solidarity" with its northern neighbor and closest ally.
Kerry pledged to step up bilateral cooperation to fight militant groups and extremist ideologies, including targeting their sources of funding and countering their propaganda.
"Together on this side of the Atlantic, and where necessary overseas, we will defeat the advocates and practitioners of terror, expose their hypocrisy, and we will win the battle of ideas," he said.
Canada, a country proud of its reputation for openness and tolerance, has remained defiant in the wake of the attacks.
It has been threatened in militant broadcasts over its role in the US-led campaign against Islamic State jihadists.
Some Canadians have travelled to the Middle East to join the group, and others are thought to have developed radical ideas at home, living among the country's Muslim minority.
- 'He seemed very extreme' -
Police say the two attackers in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec were tempted by the prospect of waging war in Syria, where IS is seeking to carve out a caliphate.
Ottawa shooter Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was described as a petty criminal who was estranged from his family and struggled with a drug addiction.
"He was very pious... but he seemed very extreme," Abdel Kareem Abubakir, a volunteer at an Ottawa shelter that had taken in Zehaf-Bibeau, told the Globe and Mail newspaper.
The assailant in the Quebec attack, 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau, had been on a watch list of suspected extremists before he used his car as a weapon to run over two soldiers in a parking lot, killing one of them before being shot dead by police.
In July, he was barred at the last minute from leaving for Turkey, a popular entry point for would-be jihadists looking to fight in Iraq and Syria.
Police seized Couture-Rouleau's passport as he sought to board an airplane in Montreal, but did not have enough evidence to arrest him.