Army base killer worshipped with 9/11 terrorists
Hasan had 'deep respect' for radical preacher
Prayers are said at the entrance to Fort Hood. Photo: Getty Images
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Sunday November 08 2009
MAJOR Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam described by the US government as a "spiritual adviser" to two of the suicide hijackers who attacked America on September 11, 2001.
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists.
The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terror organisations.
Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.
As investigators probe his motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw.
Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January 2001 from the American west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services.
Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he ever met the two terrorists.
Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers. . . who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen".
Last night Hasan remained in a coma under guard at a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and was said to be in a "stable" condition. Born in America to a Palestinian family, Hasan, 39, was an army psychiatrist who had chosen to sign up for the US military against his parents' wishes.
But he turned into an angry critic of the wars America was waging in Iraq and Afghanistan and had tried in vain to negotiate his discharge.
He counselled soldiers returning from the front line and told relatives that he was horrified at the prospect of a deployment to Afghanistan later this year -- his first time in a combat zone.
Whether due to his personal convictions, his stress over his deployment or other reasons, Hasan is alleged to have snapped and gone on a murderous rampage with a powerful semi-automatic handgun after shouting "Allahu Akhbar" ("God is great"), according to survivors.
Investigators at this stage have no indication that he planned the attacks with anyone else. But they are trawling through his phone records, paperwork and computers he used before the attack during an apparently sleepless night.
Five of the 13 victims were fellow mental health professionals from three units of the army's Combat Stress Control Detachment.
It is understood that Hasan had been due to be deployed with members of those units in coming months. Whether he deliberately singled them out is another key question.
What does seem clear is that the army missed an increasing number of red flags that Hasan was a troubled individual within its ranks.
"I was shocked but not surprised by news of Thursday's attack," said Dr Val Finnell, a fellow student on a public health course in 2007-08 who heard Hasan equate the war on terror to a war on Islam.
Another student had warned military officials that Hasan was a "ticking time bomb" after he reportedly gave a presentation defending suicide bombers.
Relatives said that the death of Hasan's parents, in 1998 and 2001, turned him more devout. "After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran," his uncle Rafiq Hamad said. "He didn't have a girlfriend, he didn't dance, he didn't go to bars."
© The Sunday Telegraph
- Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius
Originally published in
