LONGUEUIL, Quebec — Thousands of Canadian mourners, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, paid respects in Quebec on Saturday at the second of two funerals for soldiers killed in attacks police said were carried out independently by radical recent converts to Islam.

Patrice Vincent, a 53-year-old warrant officer, died on Oct 20 near Montreal when a man ran over him and a fellow soldier with a car. The driver was later shot and killed by police.

Vincent's funeral on Saturday in the city of Longueuil, Quebec, just across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, drew thousands of mourners, including a combination of soldiers, police, firefighters and local citizens.

Vincent had served nearly three decades in the Canadian military, including some time spent as a firefighter, and was just a few years from retirement.

His funeral procession included fire trucks and a band of bagpipers in full ceremonial garb. Some two dozen Royal Canadian Mounted Police in red serge dress uniforms flanked the entrance of the gray stone cathedral where the private funeral was being held.

The shock of Vincent's killing was compounded by a second attack in Ottawa on Oct 22, when a gunman shot dead a soldier guarding a national war memorial and stormed the country's Parliament building. That attacker was also shot dead by security services.

The attacks happened as Canada's military was stepping up its involvement in air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq.

Officials described Vincent's killer, 25-year-old Martin Rouleau, as a man motivated by radical beliefs.

The killings shook Canadians and prompted a debate on how the nation's open culture may need to change. Security services have warned that citizens who adopt extremist views and take up arms against the state pose a "serious" threat.