Fort Hood gunman emptied apartment before shooting

As FBI agents joined the probe into the shootings at the largest US military base, neighbours of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of the crime, said he cleaned out his apartment before the shootings.

Several residents at the apartment complex in Killeen, Texas, said Friday he also gave them copies of the Quran hours before Thursday's massacre that killed 13 people and wounded 38, media reports said.

Hasan, who worked as a psychiatrist at a hospital on the base, is accused of using two handguns to fatally shoot 12 soldiers and one army civilian employee, military officials said.

He was transported by air Friday afternoon to Brooke Army Medical Centre in San Antonio, and was in a critical condition but stable, a spokesman said.

Two law enforcement sources cited by CNN said that one of the weapons used was an FN 5.7-mm pistol, a semi-automatic purchased legally at Guns Galore, a Killeen gun shop. Details on the other gun, identified only as a type of revolver, were not immediately available.

According to the news channel, Fort Hood's commanding general said witnesses have reported that the gunman yelled "Allahu Akbar", Arabic for "god is great", during the rampage. However, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said investigators had not confirmed that.

President Barack Obama, in remarks Friday morning, cautioned against "jumping to conclusions" about what had triggered "one of the worst mass shootings ever to take place on an American military base".

He ordered that flags at the White House and other federal buildings be flown at half mast until Veterans Day, on Wednesday of next week.

Obama said he met with FBI Director Robert Mueller and representatives of other relevant agencies to discuss the investigation. And he promised that his administration will provide updates.

Military records show Hasan receiving his appointment to the army as a first lieutenant in June 1997 after graduating from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, with a degree in biochemistry.

Six years later, he graduated from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences' F. Edward Hebert School Of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, and was first an intern, then a resident and finally a fellow at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. He was promoted to major in May.

Since 2001, Hasan had been telling his family that he wanted to get out of the military but was unsuccessful, said a spokeswoman for his cousin, Nader Hasan. She added that he told his family he had been taunted after the terrorist attacks of Sep 11, 2001.

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( 432 Words)

2009-11-07-10:12:52 (IANS)

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