US Army investigators looked for help yesterday as they tried to understand why a US Army major opened fire at a military installation in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30.
“This has been a truly horrific last three days and every person has been touched in some way by this tragedy,” garrison chaplain Colonel Frank Jackson said at one of the memorial services on Sunday.
“All those around us search for meaning, answers and for someone to blame, and it’s so frustrating,” he said.
Army investigators believe the suspected shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, 39, acted alone when he opened fire in a troops processing center on Thursday.
“All evidence at this point indicates the suspect allegedly acted alone,” army investigation spokesman, Chris Grey, said, appearing to rule out theories that Hasan was part of a radical Islamist sleeper-cell.
A US senator said he would launch a probe into whether the army missed any warning signs.
The chairman of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, Joe Lieberman, said the deadly shooting was an act of “Islamist extremism,” although it was too early to spell out the motives behind the attack.
“There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act,” he told Fox News on Sunday.
“It’s clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two — if the reports that we’re receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid — he had turned to Islamist extremism,” he said.
“If that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act,” Lieberman said.
The army’s Criminal Investigation Command formally called for witnesses to come forward, asking for clothes or other personal effects that may contain gunshot residue to help put together a ballistic portrait of Thursday’s events at building 42003.
From their work and the testimony of those who met Hasan, a picture has emerged of a deeply religious American of Palestinian descent who opposed his country’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hasan was to be deployed to Afghanistan later this month, army officials said.
An initial search of Hasan’s computer revealed no direct exchanges with known extremists, but US Army and FBI officials had yet to rule out links to terrorist groups, US media reported.
Earlier this year, the FBI learned of Internet postings by a man calling himself Nidal Hasan that expressed support for suicide bombings.
The New York Times reported yesterday that on the day of the shootings, Hasan attended 6am prayers at a local mosque.
Afterward, he said goodbye to his friends there and asked forgiveness from one man for any past offenses, the paper said.
The major bought the gun used in the massacre last summer, days after arriving at Fort Hood, paying more than US$1,100 for it.
On Sunday, US commanders, fearing a backlash against Muslim troops, warned against jumping to any conclusions.
Army Chief of Staff General George Casey warned deadly shootings at Fort Hood could prompt a backlash against the estimated 3,500 Muslims serving in the US military.
“I worry that the speculation could cause something that we don’t want to see happen,” he said.
Sixteen of the 30 people wounded by volleys from the semi-automatic and the handgun allegedly wielded by Hasan, remained in hospital on Sunday.
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