Fort Hood shootings: FBI given gunman’s name six months ago

London Telegraph | November 7, 2009
Gordon Rayner and Nick Allen

The US Army major who killed 13 people in a shooting spree at America's biggest military base had come to the attention of the FBI six months earlier over possible links to extremist comments posted on the internet.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a devout Muslim who was trying to buy his way out of the Army, was suspected of being the author of postings which compared suicide bombers to heroic soldiers who throw themselves onto grenades to save others.

It also emerged that Hasan, 39, had described the US Army as "the aggressor" in Iraq and Afghanistan and was resisting a planned deployment to Afghanistan, raising questions over whether the military missed warning signs which might have prevented the massacre.

Witnesses said Hasan shouted "Allahu akbar", Arabic for God is great, as he opened fire – a phrase commonly used by Islamic militant suicide bombers – though investigators said there was no evidence he had been recruited by al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremist organisations.

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