FORT HOOD.Texas: A U.S. Army hospital spokesman said the man suspected in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood is conscious and able to talk.Dewey Mitchell, a spokesman at Brooke Army Medical Center, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan remains in stable condition. Mr. Mitchell said Maj. Hasan has been awake and able to talk since he was taken off a ventilator Saturday.
Maj. Hasan is at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood.
Authorities say the 39-year-old Maj. Hasan opened fire at a processing center Thursday at Fort Hood, the country's largest military installation. Thirteen people were killed and 30 were wounded.
The rampage ended when civilian police shot Maj. Hasan.
Army officials said their investigators increasingly believe that Maj. Hasan was the lone gunman in the carnage. "Right now we're operating on the belief that he acted alone and had no help," said a military official familiar with the Army Criminal Investigation Division probe.
To help settle the question more definitively, the official said, military investigators were trying to determine where Maj. Hasan had purchased his handguns and the large quantity of ammunition used in the attack.
At least one weapon, an expensive semiautomatic handgun, came from gun store Guns Galore in Killeen, where the Army base is located, law-enforcement officials said. A person who answered the phone at the store Friday said it was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and had been asked by law-enforcement officials not to comment.
Military and civilian law-enforcement authorities are examining Maj. Hasan's phone and computer records to see if he had communicated with any extremist elements in the days before the attack, according to a military official familiar with the matter.
The official said the investigators who seized Maj. Hasan's home computer during a recent search of his Texas apartment have been conducting a forensic reconstruction of every Web site he visited and every email he sent in the run-up to the rampage. The official cautioned that there was no hard evidence, at present, of any suspicious communications.
Maj. Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim of Jordanian and Palestinian ancestry, was slated to deploy to Afghanistan in November. Some witnesses told investigators that he shouted "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," before he opened fire on the unarmed soldiers waiting for medical treatment Thursday.
The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen praised Maj. Hasan as a hero. The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the Fort Hood attack are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.
Mr. Awlaki said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."
Two U.S. intelligence officials told the Associated Press the Web site was Mr. Awlaki's. Mr. Awlaki didn't immediately respond to an attempt to contact him through the Web site.
Investigators haven't announced a motive for the shootings but believe Maj. Hasan was almost certainly the author of an Internet posting that expressed general support for suicide bombings.
Investigators have interviewed hundreds of witnesses, including victims, but officials caution that the probe remains in a preliminary stage. Much of the Army's attention has been focused on helping the families of the deceased and injured.
In Washington, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs plans to investigate the shootings, the motive and whether the Army overlooked any warning signs, said Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the committee's chairman.
"It's premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan," Mr. Lieberman, an independent, said on "Fox News Sunday." "But it's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism."
Army officials have warned troops not to jump to any conclusions about Maj. Hasan's motives and what role, if any, his faith might have played in the shootings.
Rep. John Carter, whose congressional district includes Fort Hood in central Texas, said he personally considers the shooting rampage on the Army base a "terrorist act" because witnesses said they heard Maj. Hasan say "Allahu Akbar."
"When he shouted 'Allahu Akbar,' he gave a clear indication that his faith or Muslim view of the world had something to do with it," said the congressman, a Republican. Mr. Carter added that he would wait until the official criminal investigation is concluded before rendering an official opinion.
In Killeen, grieving has only begun for the victims of the mass shooting. At church services around the city Sunday, pastors talked about strength and service and how to pray in the face of evil.
More than 200 people have already attended counseling sessions at the base, officials said.
"There were a lot of tears," said Jill Cone, the wife of the general
The Army base prepared for a memorial service on Tuesday, which President Barack Obama is expected to attend. The victims' bodies will be released to their families the following day, and the 12 who were soldiers will be buried with full military honors.
Sixteen victims were still hospitalized Sunday, seven of them in intensive care, officials said.
Maj. Hasan remained in intensive care at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio but is no longer on a ventilator. Army officials say his condition, while critical, is improving, which means they may soon be able to question him in person.
Legal experts said Maj. Hasan could be prosecuted in a military or federal court. A state prosecution is less likely because the crime involves a military defendant and crimes committed on federal property, said Cynthia Orr, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
But in any event, she said, Maj. Hasan could face the death penalty. "Anytime you have multiple victims it raises the specter of the death penalty," she said. "That is certainly one of the qualifying factors."
( sanders@wsj.com )
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