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FORT HOOD -- Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — an Arabic phrase for “God is great!” — before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said officials had not yet confirmed that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment before the rampage Thursday. Hasan was among 30 people wounded in the shooting spree and remained hospitalized on a ventilator.All but two of the injured were still hospitalized, and all were in stable condition. Officials said the one of those killed was a civilian and that the rest were military personnel. The families of roughly 90 percent of those killed have been notified, Army officials said.To find out about relatives or loved ones at Fort Hood, call the base Hot Line at 866-836-2751 or 254-288-7570.Military officials were trying to piece together what may have pushed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist trained to help soldiers in distress, to turn on his comrades. Cone said the 39-year-old Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk.“I’m not aware of any problems here,” said Col. Steve Braverman, the Fort Hood hospital commander. “We had no problems with his job performance.”An imam from a mosque Hasan regularly attended said Hasan, a lifelong Muslim, was a committed soldier, gave no sign of extremist beliefs and regularly wore his uniform at prayers.The motive for the shooting wasn’t clear, but Hasan was apparently set to deploy soon and had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The shooting rampage at this sprawling Central Texas military base was stopped by a female police officer, identified as Sgt. Kimberly Munley of the Fort Hood Police Department, who exchanged shots with Hasan after he opened fire with two handguns on a group of soldiers.Munley's shots struck the gunman at least four times, said Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the Fort Hood commander. Munley also was wounded but was in stable condition late Thursday, he said. "It’s a terrible tragedy. It’s stunning," Cone said.It was one of the worst mass shootings ever at a U.S. military base.The general added new details — and corrected others — in a midevening news conference, saying that Hasan, was not slain, as had been reported. Hasan, an eight-year veteran from Virginia, was described as being in critical condition and was flown off-post by helicopter to an undisclosed location. Authorities had not questioned him by late Thursday. The death toll was at 13 Friday morning after another of the wounded died overnight. Of the dead, one was a civilian and 12 were soldiers, military officials said early Friday.Cone praised the heroic efforts of first responders and soldiers, some of whom ripped cloth from their uniforms as makeshift bandages for the wounded. Cone said he was unable to say whether the shootings were random. There was no indication that the two handguns, one a semiautomatic, were military-issue, he said.
