12 dead, 31 hurt in Texas military base rampage

A Muslim army officer about to be deployed to Iraq shot dead 12 people and wounded 31 others at a sprawling Texas military base before being gunned down himself and captured.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US army psychiatrist, opened fire with two handguns at a processing center at Fort Hood for troops being deployed on missions to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There was a single shooter that was shot multiple times at the scene," said Lieutenant General Bob Cone, commander of the base. "He was not killed as previously reported. He is currently in custody and in stable condition."

Further bloodshed was narrowly prevented when the gunman was blocked from reaching a graduation ceremony attended by some 600 people, just meters away from the scene.

"Thanks to the quick reaction of several soldiers, they were able to close off the doors to that auditorium," Cone said, adding that a "female civilian officer" was thought to be the first to shoot Hasan and end the rampage.

After interviewing over 100 people at the scene, authorities appear to have ruled out the possibility of a second shooter. Hasan was "not currently speaking to investigators," Cone said.

"There were initially three held. All have been interviewed, and at this time we believe the evidence indicates it was a single shooter," said Cone, who wrongly told the media earlier that the gunman was dead.

President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed of the shooting as the drama was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the attack as a "horrific outburst of violence."

"My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded. And with the families of the fallen," Obama said. Related article: Obama reax

"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil."

The US Senate held a moment of silence late Thursday in somber acknowledgement of the shooting rampage.

The shooting spree dealt a blow to an American military already under severe strain from years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and plagued by a rise in suicides and depression.

The rampage occurs at a time of stress for the armed services burdened with commanders struggling to ease the effect of repeated combat tours on troops and their families.

Obama could add to that burden in the coming weeks if he accedes to a demand from his top commander in Afghanistan for tens of thousands more troops to be deployed there to fight the Taliban.

Fort Hood, which is the size of a small town and houses tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, was locked down after the shooting for several hours as the shocked community searched for a possible motive.

The shooter's cousin dismissed speculation that the major was "afraid of deploying to go to war," but said Hasan had been harassed by his military colleagues because of his "Middle Eastern ethnicity." Related article: Shooter faced harassment

"I don't think he's ever been disenchanted with the military," Nader Hasan told Fox News. "It was the harassment.

"He hired a military attorney to try to have the issue resolved, pay back the government, to get out of the military. He was at the end of trying everything."

Hasan's parents are believed to be from the Middle East but he grew up in the United States, including in Virginia, where he attended Virginia Tech university. He was reported to be 39 years old.

Many of the victims, most of whom were military personnel, were taken to the Scott and White Memorial Hospital, which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded poured into its emergency rooms.

"Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood types," read a statement from the hospital.

The facility in central Texas, the biggest US military base in the world, is the headquarters of the Army 3rd Corps, the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. All those units have seen extensive duty in Iraq. Facts: Fort Hood

Fatal shootings are rare at US military bases and Thursday's was one of the worst ever.

In May 2007, five men suspected of being Islamic militants were arrested by the FBI and charged with plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. Four were sentenced in April to life imprisonment, and the fifth to 30 years.