Nidal Malik Hasan

Nidal Malik Hasan is a former United States Army major and psychiatrist who became known for carrying out the deadliest mass shooting on an American military base. On November 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas. During the attack, he killed 13 people—12 of whom were soldiers—and wounded more than 30 others. Hasan, who had been in contact with Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the massacre, shouted 'Allahu Akbar' during the shooting. The incident was a watershed moment in the study of 'lone wolf' radicalization within the U.S. military and raised significant questions regarding the Pentagon's handling of internal extremist threats.

Following the attack, Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by civilian police officers. In 2013, he was tried by a military court-martial, where he represented himself and admitted to the killings, claiming he was defending the Taliban from American forces. He was convicted on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder, and subsequently sentenced to death. For over a decade, Hasan remained on military death row at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as his case moved through the mandatory appeals process required for military capital punishment.

In October 2026, the Pentagon confirmed that President Trump had approved Hasan's execution by firing squad. This decision marks the first time since 1961 that the U.S. military will carry out a death sentence. The choice of a firing squad as the execution method is a rare occurrence in modern American military justice. For the Israeli and Jewish world, Hasan's case remains a significant reference point in the global fight against Islamist extremism and the challenges of identifying radicalization within state security institutions.