A screen capture of a video where Hasan is seen in a convenient store on the morning of the shootings.
The Army psychiatrist who went on a shooting rampage that left 13 people dead and 31 wounded at a Texas Army base yesterday screamed “Allahu Akbar” before he opened fire, witnesses said.
Maj Nidal Malik Hasan strode into a Fort Hood deployment center, shouting “God is great” in Arabic, before targeting military personnel and warning civilians to get out of the way.
He killed 13 people and wounded 31 others, including Fort Hood police Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who responded to the scene within three minutes of reported gunfire Thursday afternoon. She shot Hasan four times despite being shot herself.
Hasan was seen on a security video in a convenient store around 6:30 a.m. on the day of the shootings, according to CNN. He can be seen wearing a white cap and a long white robe.
Has was upset about his impending deployment overseas, a mission he’d turned against in recent years, relatives said.
Retired Col. Terry Lee, who said he had worked with Hasan, told Fox News he was being sent to Afghanistan.
“We’ve known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare,” cousin Nader Hasan said of the deployment.
Hasan had been eyed by the feds recently for demented Internet postings about suicide bombings, officials said.
Officials are investigating whether Hasan was the author of Internet postings that caught their eye about six months ago, discussing suicide bombings and other threats.
In one posting, the author compared Islamic suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their colleagues.
“To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause,” the Internet posting said. “Scholars have paralled (sic) this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers.”
One official said last night federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of Hasan’s computer.
Born in Arlington, Va., Hasan is a devout Muslim of Palestinian descent who attended Virginia Tech — scene of a 2007 campus massacre.
In recent years, he expressed his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had become angry that President Obama hadn’t withdrawn troops from the region.
“He would make comments to other individuals about how we should not be in the war in the first place,” Lee told Fox.
He said Hasan would often make “outlandish” comments.
“He said maybe Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor,” Lee said.
“At first, we thought he meant help the armed forces, but apparently, that wasn’t the case.”
Nader Hasan told Fox his cousin, a disaster and trauma specialist, had hired a military lawyer to help him get out of deployment.
“We are shocked and saddened by the terrible events at Fort Hood today,” he said in a statement issued on behalf of their family. “We send the families of the victims our most heartfelt sympathies.”
Texas US Rep. Michael McCaul told the Statesman newspaper Hasan “took a lot of advanced training in shooting” — training he allegedly put to use when he walked in to the installation’s sprawling Soldier Readiness Processing Center at around 1:30 p.m.
Armed with two handguns, one a semiautomatic — none military-issued — he started blasting away at his fellow soldiers, many of whom were GIs undergoing last-minute medical tests and other preparation for shipping out to Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said.
He was able to get off numerous rounds at once, sending soldiers scrambling for cover as their comrades fell around them, officials said.
Officials have not ruled out the possibility some casualties may have been victims of “friendly fire,” shot by authorities amid the mayhem, said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“I was confused and just shocked,” said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. “Overseas, you are ready for it. But here, you can’t even defend yourself.”
Soldiers at the base aren’t armed unless they’re in training exercises.
Quick-thinking GIs helped shuffle their injured colleagues out of the main rooms, and tore up their own uniforms to make makeshift bandages.
They also secured a nearby auditorium, where 600 had gathered for a graduation ceremony.
“As horrible as this was, I’m sure it could have been much worse,” base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said last night.
Base and military police responded within minutes, and Hasan was shot by a female officer who was wounded herself, Cone said.
In the confusing aftermath of the attack, there were initial reports Hasan had been killed. But last night, Cone said his death “was not imminent.”
He was reported on a ventilator, in critical but stable condition.
Cone said initially three people were held, and all have been interviewed. Authorities believe, however, that there was a single shooter.
President Obama decried the “horrific outburst of violence,” and said his “prayers are with the wounded and the families of the fallen.”
It’s “difficult enough to lose” soldiers in battles abroad, he said, but “it’s horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.”
The president promised a sweeping investigation of the worst soldier-on-soldier attack ever to take place on US soil.
The attack happened just down the road from one of the worst mass shootings in US history. On Oct. 16, 1991, George Hennard smashed his pickup truck through a Luby’s Cafeteria window in Killeen, Texas, and fired on the lunchtime crowd with a high-powered pistol, killing 22 people.
Hasan was an eight-year veteran who was transferred to Fort Hood after getting a poor review at his previous post, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
While an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some “difficulties” that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, the training director at the time.
Grieger said privacy laws prevented him from going into details, but the problems had to do with Hasan’s interactions with patients.
His cousin said Hasan was taunted by his colleagues after the 9/11 attacks.
While living in Virginia, he was a fixture at the Muslim Community Center in nearby Silver Spring, Md., The Washington Post reported.
He was “very devout,” a former imam there, Faizul Khan, told the paper. He said Hasan attended prayers every day, often in his Army fatigues.
He’d also applied to a matrimonial seminar, where he had problems finding a love match.
“I don’t think he ever had a match because he had too many conditions,” Khan said.
“We never got into details of worldly affairs or politics,” he said of his talks with the officer. “But there was nothing extremist in his questions.”
Covering 339 square miles, Fort Hood is the largest active-duty armored post in the United States. Home to about 52,000 troops as of earlier this year, it is located halfway between Austin and Waco.
The base was locked down after the shootings, and the wounded were rushed by helicopters and ambulances to three hospitals in central Texas.
At least two of the victims were described as being in very serious condition.
There have been other incidents of soldier-on-soldier violence since the Afghan and Iraq wars began, but none this bad.
In 2005, Sgt. Hasan Akbar was convicted and sentenced to death for throwing grenades into troop tents during the early days of the Iraq invasion. Two GIs were killed. Prosecutors said Akbar opposed US troops killing fellow Muslims in the fighting.
Additional reporting by Charles Hurt and Wire Services