Trump approves firing squad execution of army base shooter Nidal Hasan

US President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former US army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, the Pentagon said. Hasan’s execution would be the first carried out by the US military since 1961. The attack at the Texas military base also wounded more than two dozen people. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Monday said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had recommended the firing squad execution and Trump had approved it. The secretary of the army will determine the time and place of the execution, Parnell said. Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for the mass shooting, which prosecutors said was inspired by Al Qaeda. He represented himself during the trial, called no witnesses and gave no testimony, while making no attempt to deny the charges. His court-appointed defence attorneys had expressed concern that he was seeking execution. Hasan, a US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire on November 5, 2009, at a medical facility at Fort Hood, which was a major staging point for US troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. Twelve of those killed and 30 of the wounded were soldiers. Hasan was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer who responded to the attack. The military court heard that Hasan opposed the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had communicated online with Anwar Al Awlaki, an Al Qaeda-linked cleric who was later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. Mass shootings are common in the United States but relatively rare at military installations. In 2025, a soldier opened fire at a military base in Georgia, wounding five fellow troops before being subdued. In two separate incidents in 2019, a US sailor killed two people and wounded another at a base in Hawaii, while a Saudi military student killed three people at a military facility in Florida. In 2015, a US citizen born in Kuwait attacked two military facilities in Tennessee, killing four Marines and a sailor. The FBI concluded that the attack was inspired by a foreign terrorist group. In 2013, a gunman killed 12 people and wounded eight at the Washington Navy Yard before being shot dead by police.

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