USA: deadly shooting in a military base kills 13

America is trying Friday to understand how a psychiatrist officer was able to open fire in the largest military base, killing 13 soldiers and wounding 30 others.

•     Major Malik Hassan Nidal, a Palestinian, was wearing a white traditional dress, the “dishdasha,” and a skullcap, Thursday, a few hours before starting the shooting, which is the worst ever recorded in a US States military base.
  
      A U.S. military official said that the officer, a psychiatrist aged 39, would soon be sent to Iraq.
  
      General Bob Cone, commander of Fort Hood, the wider U.S. military base in the world, did not want to comment on the motives of the shooting, nor on the history of the shooter, who has not yet spoken to investigators.
  
     A cousin of Hassan, however, said that major Hassan "was mortified by the idea of being deployed" in Iraq and complained of harassment by soldiers because of his Muslim background. He was a devout Muslim, according to his aunt.
•     "He wanted to do everything he could, and according to the rules, to ensure he would not be sent" in Iraq, said the cousin, Nader Hassan. The officer psychiatrist had hired a lawyer and tried to leave the army.
  
      Hassan was born in the United States into a family of Palestinian origin from a small town near Jerusalem, according to Nader Hassan.
  
      A video surveillance camera broadcast by CNN shows the officer Hassan wearing a white “dishdasha” in a store base a few hours before he opened fire on an ambulance for the personnel to be deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  
      The video shows Hassan ongoing conversation with the owner, also of Arab origin. "He seemed normal. He came and took coffee and a dish of potatoes," said the store owner, stating that the psychiatrist officer had made his purchases at 06:20 am, or seven hours before the shooting.
  
      A graduate of Virginia Tech University, Hassan had worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington and received his medical degree in Bethesda (Maryland, east).
  
      Commander Hassan, who seems to have acted alone contrary to initial reports, was hospitalized in an intensive care unit. Hit four times during the shooting, his condition is stable.
  
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.