WASHINGTON — Investigators on Friday bore down on the possible motives of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to determine whether the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, were driven by stress related to his coming deployment to Afghanistan or an Islamist political ideology.
Law enforcement officials also faced questions about whether they had missed possible warning signs. Six months ago, investigators came across Internet postings in which Hasan allegedly indicated sympathy for suicide bombers and empathized with the plight of Muslim civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a federal official briefed on the situation. Investigators never confirmed that Hasan was the author of the postings and did not pursue the matter.
The postings were among a handful of possible red flags that preceded Thursday’s rampage, in which Hasan allegedly killed 13 people and wounded at least 30 others in the deadliest ever mass shooting on a U.S. military installation.
Friends and acquaintances said Hasan had been increasingly agitated over the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he reportedly said the U.S. “war on terror” was in fact a “war on Muslims.” Officials have seized Hasan’s computer to determine his role in the blog posts and other writings.
Investigators cautioned that it was too early to assign a motive to Hasan. Some evidence suggested that stress may have played a factor at Fort Hood. Hasan had spent nearly his entire Army medical career at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C., caring for the victims of trauma.
Regardless of his motive, lawmakers on Friday expressed puzzlement as to how one of the Army’s own could have perpetrated such an attack. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the committee would review how the military can better “spot troubled personnel like him in the future.”
The shooting has deeply troubled President Barack Obama, who faces the potential of a public backlash against Muslim-Americans. Friday in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said, “We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”
Local police said that ballistics tests showed there had been only one shooter and that none of the casualties had been hit by bullets fired by the police.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Friday that he had asked Fort Hood commanders to review force protection measures after the shootings, which he called “a kick in the gut.” Army officials said such reviews are ongoing at all installations nationwide but there had been no overarching order to raise the level of alert.
Security levels at U.S. Army posts are determined by local commanders, although if the Department of Homeland Security changes the nationwide threat level, the Army posts follow suit.
On Army posts, weapons and ammunition used for training, as well as soldiers’ private firearms, are stored in fortified rooms. If soldiers live in private housing on the posts, they are required to register personal weapons with the provost marshal, but doing so is left largely up to them.
When Hasan was shot, military investigators say, he was armed with at least two personal weapons.
One was an older-model Smith & Wesson .357-caliber revolver, and law enforcement officials said no bullets from that gun had been found as of Friday. The other was a 5.7-millimeter pistol that Hasan purchased legally at a store called Guns Galore in Killeen, Texas. The pistol has been dubbed a “cop killer” by those who have tried to stop its use.
This report includes material from the Associated Press.
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