Gunman alive after killing 13 at Texas army base

Military officials were on Friday struggling to understand why a Muslim army psychiatrist due to be deployed to Afghanistan went on a shooting rampage at this huge military base that left 13 dead and 30 wounded.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an army-trained specialist in combat stress, was under guard and in stable condition on a ventilator at a nearby civilian hospital after being shot and seriously wounded during Thursday's bloodshed.

He has not spoken about his actions, officials said.

"We're not going to speculate about motives," Colonel John Rossi, deputy commander of Fort Hood, told reporters here early on Friday.

Hundreds of mental health specialists and grief counselors meanwhile fanned out across the base, the largest in the US, to help soldiers and their families cope with the tragedy, said Colonel Steven Braverman, commander of the base hospital and Hasan's supervisor.

Rossi said state and federal law enforcement officers were investigating what led Hasan to open fire with a pistol and a semi-automatic weapon inside a packed processing center for troops being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Only quick action by soldiers and police at the base kept Hasan from reaching a nearby graduation ceremony attended by some 600 people.

Hasan's family said the accused killer had been "mortified" at the looming prospect of being sent to a combat zone, and had complained about being harassed by fellow soldiers because of his Muslim faith. Profile of the gunman

Officials initially said Hasan was to be deployed to Iraq in the coming weeks, but Braverman later said he was being sent to Afghanistan.

The experienced psychiatrist, trained to help returning troops coping with post-traumatic stress, shot a female police officer who nonetheless managed to shoot him four times to end the carnage.

The military initially suspected other soldiers may have also been involved in the shooting spree and briefly detained three men, but later concluded Hasan had acted alone.

"He must have snapped," Hasan's aunt said, noting that he had been affected by the physical and mental injuries of fellow soldiers he witnessed during nearly eight years of work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Noel Hasan told The Washington Post that the major, who she described as a devout Muslim, had been subjected to harassment about his faith since the September 11, 2001 attacks and had repeatedly sought to be discharged from the army.

Most of the victims were military personnel and many were taken to local hospitals, which put out an urgent call for blood donations as streams of wounded poured into its emergency rooms.

Braverman said early Friday that half of those wounded underwent surgery, but that all were in stable condition. Twenty-eight remained in hospital Friday morning.

Shock and dismay hung over the military community after the killings.

"I can't imagine that anyone could have seen this coming," said Mary Keller, president and chief executive of the Military Child Education Coalition, which helps youths cope with life in the armed forces.

The shooter's cousin said Hasan was "mortified by the idea of having to deploy" to Iraq or Afghanistan.

"He wanted to do whatever he could within the rules to make sure he wouldn't go over," Nader Hasan told The New York Times, adding that his cousin had retained a lawyer and sought to get out of the army before the end of his contract.

The major was born in the United States to Palestinian parents who had moved from a small town near Jerusalem, Nader Hasan added.

A surveillance video aired by CNN showed the major wearing traditional Muslim garb at a convenience store on the base just hours before the shooting as he purchased breakfast. Related article: Shooter seen buying breakfast

President Barack Obama, who had been kept informed as the rampage was tracked in the White House situation room, denounced the "horrific outburst of violence" and urged Americans to pray for those killed and wounded.

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

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

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

Obama is weighing a request by his war commander in Afghanistan for tens of thousands more troops to be deployed there, in a move that would considerably ramp up US involvement there.

Fort Hood, which houses tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, has also shouldered some of the nation's biggest burdens. Facts about Fort Hood

The stress of repeated deployments to America's two wars has Fort Hood posting the highest number of suicides at US military bases -- 75 since 2003.

The base's 1st Calvary Division, some 15,000 soldiers, is currently deployed to Iraq. Fort Hood has suffered the highest casualties in the war of any US military base.