Looking for clues in small details

KILLEEN, TEXAS - On Wednesday and Thursday, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan seemed in a hurry to give his worldly belongings to a neighbor. First a Qur'an. Then bags of vegetables. Finally a mattress, clothing and odds and ends from his bare one-room apartment.

"I'm not going to need them," he told the neighbor, Patricia Villa. He was going, he said, to Iraq or maybe to Afghanistan.

That was just one of many small and enigmatic details to emerge Friday about Hasan, the 39-year-old Army psychiatrist accused of a shooting spree at Fort Hood that killed 13 people and wounded at least 28, some who might not survive. Hasan remained in a coma, shot four times in the frantic bloodletting.

An American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, he was deeply dismayed with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but proud of his Army job. He wore Middle Eastern clothes to the convenience store and his battle fatigues to the mosque. He was trained to counsel troubled soldiers, but bottled up his own distress about deploying.

"This is a tough one. It's a kick in the gut. There's no doubt about that," said Gen. George Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, who traveled Friday with Army Secretary John McHugh to Fort Hood as a widespread investigation into the shooting began.

The rampage -- the worst case of violence on a military base in the United States -- unfolded at a center where about 300 unarmed soldiers were lined up for vaccines and eye tests.

Some soldiers reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" -- an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" -- before opening fire. Other Army officials said they could not confirm that Hasan had shouted the phrase.

Hasan's relatives said he felt harassed because of his faith but did not embrace extremism. Others were not so sure. A recent classmate said Hasan once gave a jarring presentation to students in which he argued that the war on terrorism was a war against Islam, and "made himself a lightning rod for things" when he felt his religious beliefs were challenged.

Hasan's family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were deplorable and don't reflect how the family was reared.

"We are mortified with what has unfolded and there is no justification, whatsoever, for what happened. We are all asking why this happened, and the answer is that we simply do not know," said Nader Hasan, a cousin who lives in Virginia.

Ballistics confirm lone shooter

The local police said that ballistics tests showed there had been only one shooter and that none of the casualties had been hit by police bullets.

But the military and federal investigators pointedly refused to release further details on how the shootings happened, why there were initial reports of multiple attackers and why officials took several hours to correct reports that Hasan had been killed.

Most significant, officials were not prepared to say whether the attack was the act of a lone and troubled man or connected to terrorist groups, foreign or domestic. President Obama asked people to avoid "jumping to conclusions" while the investigations continued.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said the shooting had prompted Army officials to examine procedures in tracking people who may have problems.

"Was enough done?" she asked. "I don't think that anyone would have ever expected a psychiatrist trained to help others' mental health would be the one who would go off himself, unless there's more to it, and that's what they're looking for."

In Washington, a law enforcement official said an early search of Hasan's computer did not indicate any direct exchanges with known terrorists, but the official said investigators do not have a complete record of his Internet use.

The FBI became aware of Internet postings by a man calling himself Nidal Hasan this year. The postings drew attention because they favorably discussed suicide bombings. But the investigators are still not clear whether the writer was Hasan.

Whether investigators conclude that Hasan acted alone -- a purely military-on-military crime -- or whether they uncover evidence of any civilian co-conspirators will help determine whether he faces a trial under military court or in U.S. District Court. Under either civilian or military law, a murder conviction could carry a penalty of death.

Hasan's turn to religion

Mohammed Mohammed, one of Hasan's cousins from the West Bank city of Ramallah, and another cousin described how Hasan and his two brothers had turned to religion after the deaths of their parents in 1998 and 2001. But Mohammed denied that they were religious to the point of fanaticism. "Their religion had nothing to do with politics," he said.

Muslims who attended mosques with Hasan in Virginia, Maryland and Texas said they never heard him express extremist views about politics or religion. And though openly opposed to the wars, he did not express anti-U.S. sentiments, they said.

According to a Killeen police report in August, an Army employee was charged with scratching Hasan's car, causing $1,000 in damage. Apartment manager John Thompson said the man charged was a soldier back from Iraq, who objected to Hasan's faith and ripped a bumper sticker off the major's car that said: "Allah is Love."

Neighbor Kim Rosenthal said Hasan didn't seem too upset. "He said that it was Ramadan and that he had to forgive people," Rosenthal said. "He forgave him and moved on."

But Hasan appeared less forgiving to Dr. Val Finnell when they were classmates in a 2007-08 master's public health program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

He said that at a class presentation by public health students, Hasan talked about U.S. military actions as a war on Islam. "He made himself a lightning rod for things," Finnell said.

Jacqueline Harris, 44, who lives with her boyfriend, Willie Bell, in the apartment next door to Hasan's, said he called at 5 a.m. Thursday and left a message. "He just wanted to thank Willie for being a good friend and thank him for being there for him," Harris said. "That was it. We thought it was just a nice message to leave."

The New York Times, Associated Press and Washington Post contributed to this report.