Shooting suspect faced deployment, wanted out

WASHINGTON — He prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md., a Muslim who, despite asking to be discharged from the Army, according to his aunt, was on the eve of his first deployment to war. Authorities said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Arlington, Va.-born psychiatrist, shot and killed at least 12 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday. At least 31 people were wounded.

Hasan, who was shot while being taken into custody, was under military guard Thursday night at a hospital, where authorities said he was on a ventilator and unconscious, according to The Associated Press.

He was apparently dressed in a military uniform earlier when, according to officials, he sprayed bullets inside a crowded processing center for soldiers returning or about to be sent overseas.

As ambulances wailed to the scene of the shootings, officials said the injuries to the wounded varied significantly, with some in critical condition and others slightly wounded. It was not clear late Thursday how many of the dead and wounded were soldiers.

The Associated Press said that officials have not ruled out the possibility that some casualties may have been victims of "friendly fire," shot by authorities amid the confusion, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As authorities scrambled to figure out what happened, a hazy and contradictory picture emerged of a man who received all of his medical training from the military and spent all of his career in the Army, yet turned so violently against his own.

In an interview, his aunt, Noel Hasan, of Falls Church, Va., said he had endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the Sept. 11 attacks and had sought for several years to be discharged from the military.

"I know what that is like," she said. "I have experienced it myself while working as a bank executive. ... 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.

An Army spokesman, George Wright, said he could not confirm the report of any request to be discharged.

Hasan recently had expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew the realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

"He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy," Nader Hasan said. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there."

Nader Hasan said his cousin, however, never mentioned in recent phone calls to Virginia that he was going to be deployed, and he said the family was shocked when it heard the news on television Thursday afternoon. "He was doing everything he could to avoid that," Hasan said.

Nader Hasan said his cousin's parents had both been U.S. citizens who owned businesses, including restaurants and a store, in Roanoke, Va. He declined to confirm reports that they were Jordanian, but said the parents, who are both dead, had immigrated from a small town near Jerusalem many years ago.

His mother's obituary in The Roanoke Times in 2001 said she was a restaurant owner, born in Palestine in 1952.

His father died in 1998.

The FBI had earlier become aware of Internet postings by a man calling himself Nidal Hasan, a law-enforcement official said. The postings discussed suicide bombing in a favorable light.

In one posting on the Web site Scribd, a man named Nidal Hasan compared a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to protect fellow soldiers to suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves to protect Muslims.

"If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory," the man wrote. It could not be confirmed, however, that Maj. Hasan was the writer.

Nidal Hasan steered clear of female colleagues and, despite devout practices, listed himself in Army records as having no religious preference, co-workers said.

He is a 1997 graduate of Virginia Tech University who got a medical degree in psychiatry from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. From 2003 through last summer, he was an intern, resident and then fellow at Walter Reed, where he worked as a liaison between wounded soldiers and the hospital's psychiatry staff. He also was a fellow at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda military medical school.

Hasan had transferred to Fort Hood in July from Walter Reed, where he received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, The AP reported.

He had been affected by the physical and mental injuries he saw as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed, his aunt said. "Some people can take that, and some can't," Noel Hasan said. "He must have snapped."

Hasan "did not make many friends" and "did not make friends fast," his aunt said. He had no girlfriend and was not married. "He would tell us the military was his life," she said.

The psychiatrist once said that "Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor" and that the United States shouldn't be fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place, according to an interview with Col. Terry Lee, a former colleague, on Fox News.

At the Muslim Community Center, Hasan stood out because he would sometimes show up in Army fatigues, said Faizul Khan, the former imam there.

"He came to mosque one or two times to see if there were any suitable girls to marry," Khan said. "I don't think he ever had a match, because he had too many conditions. He wanted a girl who was very religious, prays five times a day, which is all very good."

Hasan wrote in an application filed with a Muslim matching service that "I am quiet and reserved until more familiar with person. Funny, caring and personable."

A co-worker at Walter Reed said Hasan would not allow his photo to be taken with female co-workers, which became an issue during Christmas season when employees often took group photos. Co-workers would find a solo photo of Hasan and post it on the bulletin board without his permission.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Hasan was born in Virginia to parents who immigrated from Jordan. The congressman said that Hasan "took a lot of advanced training in shooting."

Born at Arlington Hospital, Nidal Hasan graduated from high school in Roanoke, Va., where his parents had moved. He enlisted in the Army after high school and majored in biochemistry at Virginia Tech.

Material from The New York Times is included in this report.