Mass murder at Fort Hood

Updates added, see end

One or more shooters, identified as US Army members, opened fire with high-powered rifles at Ft Hood, Texas, at about 1:30 p.m. CST today, killing 12 persons and wounding 31.

Drudge Report headlines the story with this abominably misleading photo.

This is not a photo of the shootings in progress nor was it taken at Ft Hood nor are the three soldiers in the picture even Americans. But there's nothing on Drudge to indicate any of that. These are allied troops, probably British but possibly Canadian. This is evident from the shape and size of their helmets and the colors and patterns of their uniforms.

Update: Glenn Reynolds reports the photo is offline now, and so it is. I wish I'd taken a screen grab. But it's good they corrected their error.

One shooter was shot to death by police on the base. That there may have been another shooter is being investigated because there were reports of shots fired after this shooter was killed. It is reported that the shootings took place at two separate locations, the the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center and Howze Theater.

Other reports are that a suspect is in custody. MSNBC reports

A senior administration official told NBC News analyst Roger Cressey that the suspect who was in custody was an Army major with an Arabic-sounding name. The official said the shootings could have been a criminal matter rather than a terrorism-related attack and that there was no intelligence to suggest a plot against Fort Hood.

As of now, the lead agency for the investigation would be US Army Criminal Investigation Command, known by its historic initials of CID, because the crimes took place on Army territory. Interagency cooperation with the FBI and ATF and state law enforcement agencies is already being done. If, however, the shootings are deemed to be terrorism (perhaps an Islamist connection), by federal law the FBI is the lead agency for all terrorism investigations.

In 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq by American and allied forces, Sgt. Asan Akbar of the 101st Airborne Division's 326th Engineer Battalion threw a grenade into a tent area in Kuwait filled with 101st troops, killing one and wounding 15. He said his Muslim religion was a factor in the attack.

US officials have been concerned about Islamist infiltration of the US military for many years. See this statement of J. Michael Waller, Professor of International Communication, Institute of World Politics, before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary six years ago: Terrorist Recruitment and Infiltration in the United States: Prisons and Military as an Operational Base.

Seem also Jihad Watch's post, "Muslim Troops' Loyalty a Delicate Question."

Update: Reports now are consistent that the shooter (or one of them) used two pistols to shoots his victims at close range, execution style, probably as many as 50 rounds. The name of the suspected shooter, killed by police, was Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan (photo at left), an Army psychologist who recently arrived at the post. There are also reports that Ft Hood's authorities are continuing to look for another shooter. ABC News reports that Hasan killed 11 and was himself the 12th person killed.

Update, 7 p.m. CST: I may have to do a bit of a climbdown with the photo on Drudge, above. The three soldiers are wielding M16-series rifles, the standard for US troops since the 1960s, which neither the Brits nor Canucks use. Also, the UK's TimesOnline publishes this photo, very similar to the Drudge photo, that it cutlines, "A file image of soldiers training at Fort Hood: America's foreign conflicts are exacting a huge toll on the base." It's highly unlikely that one of Britain's best papers would confuse its own country's troops with Americans. I can only plead that both photos are pretty small to make out fine detail, but now I'd have to say that the Drudge photo is in fact most likely of American troops and depicts a training facility at Ft Hood. However, unlike TimesOnline, Drudge did not indicate that the photo displayed had nothing to do with the events of the story, and it should have. That's a pretty basic editorial mistake for which I would have been highly dinged in my journalism school.

Blogs - you don't have to wait 24 hours to get a correction, and it won't be buried on a back page below the fold!

Update: Ft Hood's commanding general, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, has announced that Hasan was not killed at the scene but was captured alive and is in stable condition, presumably in the post hospital. Contrary to an earlier report I cited above, Hasan did kill 12 people, all military except two, rather than eleven.

First reports had the shooter's last name spelled "Nasan," now all say "Hasan."