Trump Approves Military Firing Squad Execution for Convicted Fort Hood Shooter

President Donald Trump has approved the US military’s execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist responsible for the deadly 2009 shooting at Fort Hood in Texas.

Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than two dozen others during the attack on the military base. His execution would be the first carried out by the US military since 1961.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision on Monday, saying Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had recommended the punishment and Trump had given his approval.

“has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan,” Parnell said in a post on X.

“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” he added.

Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for carrying out the Al-Qaeda-inspired mass shooting.

During the trial, Hasan chose to represent himself. He called no witnesses, did not testify and made no attempt to dispute the charges. His court-appointed defence lawyers had previously raised concerns that he wanted to be executed.

13 killed in Fort Hood shooting

The attack took place on November 5, 2009, when Hasan opened fire at a medical facility at the sprawling Fort Hood base.

The Texas installation was used as a staging location for US troops preparing for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Twelve of the 13 people killed were soldiers, while 30 of those wounded were also members of the military. Hasan was eventually shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer who responded to the incident.

Evidence presented during the trial showed that Hasan opposed the US military’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had also communicated online with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an alleged Al-Qaeda figure who was later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Rare violence on US military bases

Although mass shootings occur frequently in the United States, attacks of this nature remain uncommon on military bases.

In 2025, a soldier opened fire at a military installation in Georgia, injuring five fellow service members before being tackled and apprehended.

A year earlier, in 2019, a US sailor fatally shot two people and wounded another at a military base in Hawaii. The same year, a Saudi military student killed three people at a military facility in Florida.

In 2015, a Kuwaiti-born US citizen attacked two military installations 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 in the US capital before police shot him dead.

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