Just three weeks after being transferred to the U.S. Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, Maj. Nidal Hasan walked into the Guns Galore gunshop in Killeen, Texas, and purchased the high-powered semiautomatic pistol that he allegedly used in the mass shooting at the base on Thursday, a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told Declassified.
The timing of the purchase of the Belgian made FN Herstal 5.7 pistol—a growing weapon of choice of Mexican drug cartels—is being viewed by some investigators as a potentially important clue suggesting that Hasan may have been plotting the attack for some time.
Hasan bought the gun on Aug. 1 of this year, said the law enforcement official, who asked that his name and agency not be identified because of the ongoing investigation. (Although Hasan's purchase of the gun was reported Friday by ABC and other news organizations, the date of the purchase has not previously been disclosed. A second federal law enforcement official confirmed the Aug. 1 date to Declassified on Saturday.)
At the same time, Hasan also bought several high-capacity 20 round magazines that allowed him to rapidly fire off multiple rounds during the attack without reloading, the official said.
"Why do you go out and buy a pistol with several magazines?" said the law enforcement official. "Of course, he planned this." The official added, "Nobody wants to say that," referring to the authorities' reluctance to refer to the shooting as a premeditated attack.
Hasan ended up using the Herstal semiautomatic and another handgun to fire off as many as 100 rounds during the Thursday attack that killed 13 people at the base and wounded 38.
What is especially intriguing about the date of the purchase is that on July 7, according to Hassan's official Army records posted on Declassified on Friday, he was transferred from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. to the Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood.
The transfer—and the gun purchase—also came while Hasan may have been undergoing a period of increasing alienation from the U.S. and expressing sympathy for Muslim militants. An Internet posting written by someone with the screen name of "NidalHasan" compared Islamic suicide bombers to Japanese kamikaze pilots.
"To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate," the posting read referring a recent attack on American soldiers. "It's more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. You can call them crazy [if] you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam." (FBI officials say they have not yet confirmed that the Hasan who is the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting is the same individual who posted the writing on the Internet.)
To some in law enforcement—including the one who spoke to Newsweek—the purchase of the high-powered gun, the Internet writing, and Hasan's alleged shouting of "Allah u akbar" (Arabic for "God is great") during the attack—suggest that the Fort Hood shooting should be viewed more as a terrorist act by a "lone wolf" Muslim extremist than as the work of a troubled physician who "snapped" under pressure.
But FBI and Justice Department officials are reluctant at this stage in the investigation to reach any conclusions, at least officially. "We just don't know enough at this stage," an FBI spokesman said Friday night.
