By Randy Sly
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
11/8/2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – Only minutes after the bloody assault at the Soldier Readiness Center (SRC), Fort Hood, Texas, the media was buzzing with news that the gunman, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was a devout Muslim. Before opening fire, first-hand accounts reported he yelled, “Allahu Akbar” meaning “God is greatest.”
While officials were reluctant to explain any possible motivation behind the killings, news of Hasan’s background and activities earlier in the day began to form a consistent pattern of behavior.
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch reported that the online magazine “Sada al-Malahim” Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Nasir al-Wahayshi released an article calling jihadists to initiate simple attacks on random targets. In the article, he described these targets as "any crusaders whenever you find one of them, like at the airports of the crusader Western countries that participate in the wars against Islam, or their living compounds, trains etc…"
Spencer’s article was quick to ask the obvious question – was Hasan’s attack a response to this invitation. Was it “freelance jihad?”
As the day wore on, further issues and behaviors were uncovered regarding the Army doctor that seemed to underscore the possibility of this motive.
Here are just a few things that have been released, providing a clearer picture of the gunman’s actions and mindset just prior to his attack at Fort Hood:
1. Spencer posted a confirming report from KSL-TV concerning the beginning of the attack. In the online report a father recounts the conversation he had just had with his daughter, who was stationed at Fort Hood and at the SRC during the attack. The daughter told her father that the man shouted “Allah Akbar” before opening fire.
2. The Associated Press (AP) reported that Hasan argued with fellow soldiers who supported U.S. war policy.
3. They also reported that at least six months ago Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials. Although not yet confirmed, they suspected that he was the author of some Internet postings about suicide bombings and other possible threats.
4. Also, according to the AP, that morning he called a friend to thank him for his friendship.
5. At Jihad Watch, Spencer posted a story from Justin Blum at Bloomberg as follows:
“Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 30 others at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, regularly described the war on terror as ‘a war against Islam,’ according to a doctor who was in a graduate program with him.”
6. A YouTube posting by Spencer from CNN showed Hasan at a convenience store earlier in the day of the shooting. In the video, the reporter recounts a conversation between Hasan and the store owner, also a Muslim regarding the doctor’s upcoming deployment. Hasan indicated that fighting fellow muslims was weighing heavily on him.
7. Retired Colonel Terry Lee, a former colleague, told Fox News that while attending a conference Hasan stated that Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor. After news of a shooting at a Little Rock recruitment center at an earlier time, he made a similar comment.
8. The Killeen Daily Herald reported that police had secured Hasan’s apartment shortly after the attack and then Bell County SWAT teams evacuated the apartment complex later that day.
According to the Daily Herald, “In the morning, neighbors said Hasan handed Qurans and donated his furniture to anyone who would take it.
“Neighbors described Hasan as a quiet man who began wearing ‘Arabic clothing’ in recent weeks. Edward Windsor, a neighbor, never suspected Hasan was in the Army. Hasan's rank surprised Windsor who would never have imagined an officer with a rank of major would have lived in an apartment that rents for $350 and houses soldiers ranked as private first class.”
On Saturday, the Daily Herald highlighted Hasan’s generosity toward a neighbor, Patricia Villa on the morning of the shootings.
“Hasan's kindness and generosity overwhelmed Villa Thursday morning when he gifted his belongings to decorate her meager apartment at the Casa Del Norte apartments located along North Fourth Street. A few hours later the version of Hasan described on TV shocked her.”
“Hasan paid Villa $60 to clean his apartment Thursday morning, a few hours before the massacre.
“He never left her a key, Villa said. He also gave her a microwave, an air mattress, a steam cleaner and a scale.
“Hasan gave Villa several shirts, two ties and a suit for her husband.”
Robert Spencer made the following observations on his site Jihad Watch regarding the situation.
“…Major Hasan's motive was perfectly clear -- but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened - and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored.”
Spencer also documents an Internet positing by a person, who gave his name as “Nidal Hasan.” In the post, the writer attempts to show that a suicide bomber has the same motivation as a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades.
“Scholars have paralled this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland.”
Some of the reasons put forth for Hasan’s violence have been as strange as they are varied:
CNN reporters pointed to the possibility of racism in an interview with Hasan’s cousin, who said, “There was racism towards him because he's a Muslim, because he's an Arab, because he prays.”
The cousin, however, went on to say, “If he had killed one or two, I could say that he was defending himself. I could say that there could have been a problem between two sides which led to the use of weapons. But for one to kill 13 people and injure more than 30, I personally don't think that it was because someone was bothering him. There is a bigger reason that this happened and no ones knows it besides Nidal.”
Gilbert Mercier, of News Junkie Post, challenges the idea of a terrorist motive. In his article “Will Fort Hood’s Tragedy Trigger An Anti-Muslim Backlash?” Mercier argues that Husan was American born and raised. He attended American schools, although the son of Palestinian immigrants he did not speak Arabic, and joined the Army to receive his medical training.
Somewhat a victim of circumstance, Hasan couldn’t get out of his deployment, let alone the Army since they paid for his education. He was caught.
And as for the attack, he has reservations about the first-hand accounts.
“FBI agents investigating the case are not sure Hasan really said ‘Allahu Akbar’ before he started shooting, but instead suggested that perhaps ‘Soldiers in the mayhem of the moment only imagined Hasan said ‘Allahu Akbar.’”
In his coverage of the events at Fort Hood, “In April 2005, a Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. AP reported: ‘Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve 'maximum carnage' on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division.’
“And Hasan's murderous rampage resembles one that five Muslim men in New Jersey tried to carry out at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 2007, when they plotted to enter the U.S. Army base and murder as many soldiers as they could.
That was a jihad plot. One of the plotters, Serdar Tatar, told an FBI informant late in 2006: ‘I'm gonna do it....It doesn't matter to me, whether I get locked up, arrested, or get taken away, it doesn't matter. Or I die, doesn't matter, I'm doing it in the name of Allah.’
“Another plotter, Mohamad Shnewer, was caught on tape saying, ‘They are the ones, we are going to put bullets in their heads, Allah willing.’”
Spencer and Jihad Watch were spotlighted on Saturday by the Associated Press in an article on anti-Muslim backlash. Ironically, the Spencer’s story of a possible jihad was the only example they used to support the claim of a backlash.
Mosques across the country have called for increased police protection in fear of attack. So far, there has been no serious backlash to the actions of Hasan, either toward mosques or other Muslims in the armed services.
While the exact motive will not be known unless Hasan awakes from his coma, the circumstances that surround the massacre at Fort Hood provide compelling evidence that a religious motivation must be seriously considered among the reasons for the killings.
As radical Islamists, such as Al-Qaeda, continue to call for freelance jihad, without vigilance we remain vulnerable to those who embrace this call as their own.
Randy Sly is the Associate Editor of Catholic Online. He is a former Archbishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Church who laid aside that ministry to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church.
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