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President Donald Trump has authorized the use of a firing squad to execute Nidal Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist convicted of massacring 13 people and injuring over two dozen others at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009, the Pentagon announced on Monday (October 5). This will be the first execution by the US military since 1961.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the death penalty, which President Trump has subsequently approved. The Secretary of the Army will determine the specific date and location of the execution. Hasan, a born US Muslim of Palestinian descent, was sentenced to death in 2013 following a military jury trial for conducting a terrorist attack inspired by Al-Qaeda at the sprawling Fort Hood base, which was a staging point for deployments to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The shooting, which occurred on November 5, 2009, resulted in the deaths of 12 individuals and injuries to more than 30 others, all of whom were soldiers. Hasan was partially paralyzed during the attack by a civilian police officer who responded. He conducted his own defense during the trial, choosing not to present witnesses or testimony, and did not deny the charges.

Prosecutors stated that Hasan opposed the US military's presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and had communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American Al-Qaeda cleric who was later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. Despite the rarity of such incidents, mass shootings at military facilities are uncommon. In 2025, a soldier opened fire at a base in Georgia, wounding five fellow troops before being apprehended.

In 2019, a sailor fatally shot two people and injured a third at a Hawaii base, while a Saudi military student killed three individuals at a Florida facility that same year. A Kuwaiti-born US citizen attacked two military installations in Tennessee in 2015, killing four Marines and a sailor, with the FBI linking the violence to foreign terrorist influence.

Two years prior, a man killed 12 people and injured eight at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. before being shot dead by officers.