Date: 5 November 2009

Location: Fort Hood, Texas, United States

Type of event: terrorism

Description:

Thirteen Army servicemen and servicewomen killed (Michael Cahill, Libardo Caraveo, Justin DeCrow, John Gaffaney, Frederick Greene, Jason Hunt, Amy Krueger, Aaron Nemelka, Michael Pearson, Russell Seager, Francheska Velez (pregnant), Juanita Warman, and Kham Xiong) and 43 injured in shooting attack at Soldier Readiness Center, Fort Hood, Texas.

The gunman, Nidal Malik Hasan, was shot and injured by two police officers; Hasan was an Army psychiatrist and had expressed indications of Islamic radicalization, and had come to the attention of the FBI in early 2009 for email exchanges with terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki; the FBI and DOD had dismissed concerns about the contacts and other indicators. From the time of the attack to the present (2015) the Obama administration has insisted on characterizing this incident as workplace violence rather than a terrorist attack, with the consequence of denying appropriate benefits to surviving victim servicemembers; under pressure from Congress the Army finally awarded Purple Hearts to injured survivors in April 2015, with some benefits possibly to follow.

Consequences: 13 killed, 44 injured

References:

© 2017 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 5 December 2017.
Return to Home. Return to Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Unconventional Warfare.