Nov 7, 2009 4:08 pm US/Eastern
Muslim Leader Had Concerns About Ft. Hood Shooter
SILVER SPRING, Md. (WJZ/AP) ―
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Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan once attended a mosque in Silver Spring seven days a week.
CBS
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Soldiers from 3rd Brigade "Grey Wolf" 1st Cavalry division from Fort Hood Texas get ready to return to the US after finishing their tour in Iraq at Warhorse base in Baquba, Diyala province, 27 November 2007.
Gianluigi Guercia/Getty Images
A Muslim leader says the Army psychiatrist suspected of going on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood asked him for advice on what he should tell soldiers who had concerns about going to fight Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Osman Danquah is the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen. He says he had a bad feeling about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan after the two talked twice in late summer.
He told The Associated Press on Saturday that Hasan regularly attended services at the mosque in his uniform.
Danquah says Hasan never mentioned any anger toward the Army or indicated any plans for violence but seemed incoherent during their second conversation.
Danquah says he told Hasan that there was "something wrong with you."
Before the incident at Fort Hood, as if going off to war, Hasan cleaned out his apartment, gave leftover frozen broccoli to one neighbor and called another to thank him for his friendship -- common courtesies and routines of the departing soldier.
Instead, authorities say, he went on the killing spree that left 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, dead.
Investigators examined Hasan's computer, his home and his garbage Friday to learn what motivated the suspect, who lay in a coma, shot four times in the frantic bloodletting that also wounded 30. Hospital spokeswoman Maria Gallegos said Friday Hasan was in stable condition in the intensive care unit at the hospital on Fort Sam Houston outside San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood.
Kai Jackson reports the news the attack on Fort Hood hit hard in Silver Spring.
Hasan once attended the mosque in Silver Spring seven days a week. Those who knew him say he was polite and quiet, and they never saw this coming.
Hasan used to pray every day at the Muslim Community Center.
Now the only question that remains is what was going on in the mind of Hasan?
Akhtar Khan knew him for years and was shocked when he learned he opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.
"I said, 'No, he cannot be like that," said Khan. "He is not one of those kind of people who get angry or who has some kind of agendas. He was an educated psychiatrist doctor."
Hasan, 39, was born in Virginia, attended Virginia Tech and received his medical degree from Uniformed Service University in Bethesda. For the past six years, he worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center caring for those injured in war.
He was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan where he would help soldiers deal with stress. Now many are wondering if Hasan himself needed healing.
He lived in several homes in Maryland. Those closest to him say he was quiet and kept to himself.
"I think what struck me here is how easy for some of these people to be operating inside the military forces," said Ali Al-Ahmed, Institute of Gulf Affairs.
Many who gathered at the Muslim mosque in Silver Spring for prayer worried about a backlash against their community.
"A list of hundreds of thousands of people have come through here," said Arshad Qureshi, MCC Board of Directors.
Some wonder what made Hasan snap.
"Why a person like him can do something like that? What made him to do that thing," said Khan.
Hasan never showed any signs of mental problems in any of his evaluations, including one in September.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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