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Fort Hood rampage clues emerge

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By ANGELA K. BROWN and ALLEN G. BREED

The Associated Press

Published: November 8, 2009

FORT HOOD, Texas - There was the classroom presentation that justified suicide bombings. Comments to colleagues about a climate of persecution faced by Muslims in the military. Conversations with a mosque leader that became incoherent.

As a student, some who knew Nidal Malik Hasan said they saw clear signs the young Army psychiatrist - who authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 29 others wounded - had no place in the military. After arriving at Fort Hood, he was conflicted about what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers about the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, alarming an Islamic community leader from whom he sought counsel.

"I told him, 'There's something wrong with you,'" Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, told The Associated Press on Saturday. "I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."

Danquah assumed the military's chain of command knew about Hasan's doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan's "anti-American propaganda," but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.

"The system is not doing what it's supposed to do," said Val Finnell, who studied with Hasan from 2007-2008 in the master's program in public health at the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. "He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out."

Military authorities continued Saturday to refer to Hasan as a suspect in the shootings, and have not yet said if they plan to charge him in a military or civilian court. His family described a man incapable of the attack, calling him a devoted doctor and devout Muslim who showed no signs that he might lash out with violence.

In the days since authorities think Hasan fired more than 100 rounds in a soldier processing center at Fort Hood in the worst mass shooting on a military facility in the United States, a picture has emerged of a man who was forcefully opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was trying to get out of his pending deployment to a war zone and had struggled professionally in his work as an Army psychiatrist.

"He told (them) that as a Muslim committed to his prayers he was discriminated against and not treated as is fitting for an officer and American," Mohammed Malik Hasan, 24, a cousin, told the AP from his home near the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Twice this summer, Danquah said, Hasan asked him what to tell soldiers who expressed misgivings about fighting fellow Muslims. The retired Army first sergeant and Gulf War veteran said he reminded Hasan that these soldiers had volunteered to fight, and that Muslims were fighting against each other in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories.

"But what if a person gets in and feels that it's just not right?" Danquah recalled Hasan asking him.

"I'd give him my response. It didn't seem settled, you know. It didn't seem to satisfy," he said. "It would be like a person playing the devil's advocate. ... I said, 'Look. I'm not impressed by you.'"

Danquah said he never saw a need to tell anyone at the sprawling Army post about the talks. "If I had an inkling that he had this type of inclination or intentions, definitely I would have brought it to their attention," he said.

OBAMA ISSUES REMINDER OF EQUALITY

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama, extending condolences to the community at Fort Hood, Texas, reminded Americans on Saturday that people of "every race, faith and station" serve in the military - an oblique attempt to prevent a backlash against Muslims in the wake of Thursday's shootings at the base that left 13 dead.

Speaking in his weekly address, he seemed to urge Americans not to dwell on the suspect's religion by reminding the nation of the broad diversity of those who serve.

"They are Americans of every race, faith and station," he said. "They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. ... What they share is a commitment to country that has been tested and proved worthy. What they share is the same unflinching courage, unblinking compassion and uncommon camaraderie that the soldiers and civilians of Fort Hood showed America and showed the world."

The New York Times

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