PROFILE: US military gunman, a Muslim, opposed Iraq war

By Pat Reber Nov 6, 2009, 11:02 GMT

Washington - The US Army psychiatrist who killed 12 people in a shooting rampage on a Texas military base is a devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to media reports Friday.

The shootings on Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, shocked a military community accustomed to grieving for soldiers killed in two overseas wars but not prepared for their home base to be turned into a combat zone.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was being held after the attack that also injured 31 others. Most of the victims were soldiers.

Hasan was shot four times while being taken into custody after the 1:30 pm shooting and was reported in stable condition at a hospital Thursday night, authorities said. All but two of the victims were soldiers, according to Army Lieutenant General Robert Cone.

Hasan was finally downed by a civilian police officer, who also suffered gunshot wounds. Investigators determined Hasan had been the lone shooter after interviewing more than 100 people on the scene, Cone said.

Much of Hasan's job had been to counsel soldiers with post-traumatic stress syndrome, a growing plague for men and women who have been repeatedly deployed to war zones and often had their combat tours of duty extended in the past eight years.

Hasan was facing his first combat deployment since joining the army in 1995, either to Iraq or Afghanistan, according to a Texas senator quoted by The New York Times.

He had been seeking a discharge for several years from the army, which put him through college and medical school, but had apparently had his request rejected, relatives said.

His cousin, Nader Hasan, told the New York Times that the major was 'mortified by the idea of having to deploy. He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.'

His aunt in Falls Church, Virginia, told the Washington Post that Hasan had been heckled for his Muslim faith in the years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US.

'I know what that is like,' Noel Hasan was quoted as saying. 'Some people can take it, and some cannot. He had listened to all of that, and he wanted out of the military, and they would not let him leave even after he offered to repay' for his medical training.

Colonel Terry Lee, a co-worker of Hasan's, told Fox News that Hasan had once said that Muslims should 'stand up and fight against the aggressor' and that the US should not be fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Investigators had not ruled out terrorism as a motive, but Cone said evidence did not suggest it.

The killings occurred at Fort Hood's Soldier Family Readiness Center where soldiers were waiting for medical and dental appointments. Fort Hood is one of the world's largest military bases and serves as a major launching point for US deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cone said Hasan was armed with two handguns, neither of which was military issue. Soldiers are normally unarmed on the base.

'One was a semi-automatic weapon, which might explain his rate of fire,' Cone said.

Before being sent to Fort Hood, Hasan had worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, with wounded soldiers, and had been impacted by the physical and mental injuries he saw there, his aunt said.

He was a fellow at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda military medical school outside the nation's capital, the Post reported.

'He must have snapped,' Noel Hasan told the Post. 'They ignored him. It was not hard to know when he was upset.'

She said he was a loner who had no girlfriend and was not married.

When living in the Washington area, he went regularly to the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, wearing Army fatigues, according to the former imam there, Faizul Khan.

Khan told the Post that he came to the mosque several times looking for a suitable woman to marry, but had 'too many conditions' to be satisfied with anyone.

The rampage was said to be the worst ever on a US military facility. The deadliest shooting in modern American history occurred in 2007 at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people. Hasan coincidentally was a graduate of Virginia Tech in the late 1990s.

The shooting stirred worry in the Killeen, Texas, community where Fort Hood is located. The town is peppered with large signs welcoming home returning soldiers, underscoring the sense of safety troops feel while on their home base, according to the American-Statesman, the daily newspaper in nearby Austin, Texas.

The possibility of a terrorist motive also concerned a woman in the local Muslim community, who noted the effect it could have on how people view Islam.

'My prayers go out to all the families,' Iman Mahmood Hasan bin Hamad told the Statesman. 'I'm really sorry about what's going on. I know the stereotype, but not all Muslims have this intention.'