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US officials say that investigations into the Fort Hood attack did not alter the prevailing theory that the army major acted alone. (Reuters) |
TEXAS – A deadly shooting spree by a US Muslim soldier at a military base in Texas last week was not a terror plot, the FBI has concluded.
“There is no information to indicate Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had any co-conspirators or was part of a broader terrorist plot,” the FBI said in a statement cited by The New York Times on Tuesday, November 10.
Officials said army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan came to the FBI notice in December after communicating with an American imam living in Yemen.
But investigations by the Joint Terrorism Task Force found that the communications did not suggest any threat of violence.
"Because the content of the communications was explainable by his research and nothing else derogatory was found, the JTTF concluded that Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning."
Hasan went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood military base last week, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others.
The army major was shot and rushed to hospital, where he came out of coma Saturday.
"He is talking. He is conversing with the medical staff," a spokeswoman for the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A round-the-clock inquiry at Fort Hood has so far failed to uncover the motives behind the shooting.
US President Barack Obama has ordered a full review of the shooting to determine its motives.
Obama told ABC television that he was determined "to complete this investigation and we are going to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again."
Acted Alone
US officials say that investigations did not alter the prevailing theory that the army major acted alone.
“There was no indication that Major Hasan was planning an imminent attack at all, or that he was directed to do anything,” a senior investigator told the Times.
A government officials said that the general tender of the communications between Hasan and the overseas imam “was benign”.
The communications contained "no red flag", according to the official.
Officials said the Departments of Defense and Justice had decided to prosecute the army major in a military court, an indication that investigators believe he acted alone.
Investigators tried to interview the army major, but he invoked his right to speak to a lawyer.
Hasan spent years counselling severely wounded soldiers, many of whom had lost limbs fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Having counselled the soldiers, the army major has become too well aware of the terrifying realities of the war.
According to army officials, Hasan was to be deployed this month to Afghanistan later this month.
Relatives have said Hasan wanted to leave the Army to avoid being deployed to Afghanistan and that he had faced harassment by fellow soldiers because of his religion.
Mental health and war experts have pointed the finger at combat trauma running rampant in the military for the shooting.
"There is some evidence that the Major was -- at least in part-- negatively affected by his caring for the psychologically wounded; that he loved his country and felt the emotional pain of his patients who he saw, like him, serving the country they love," Professor Charles Figley of Tulane University in New Orleans, a mental health and trauma specialist, told IslamOnline.net.
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