Major Nidal M. Hasan

Washington, Nov. 6: Major Nidal Malik Hasan prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

A devout Muslim, Hasan was on the eve of his first deployment to war despite asking to be discharged from the US army. Yesterday, authorities said Hasan, a 39-year-old Arlington-born psychiatrist, shot and killed at least 12 people at Fort Hood, Texas.

In an interview, his aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Virginia, said he had endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the September 11, 2001, attacks and had sought for several years to be discharged from the military.

“I know what that is like,” she said. “Some people can take it, and some cannot. He had listened to all of that, and he wanted out of the military, and they would not let him leave even after he offered to repay” for his medical training.

As authorities scrambled to figure out what happened at Fort Hood, a hazy and contradictory picture emerged of a man who received his medical training from the military and spent his career in the army, yet allegedly turned so violently against his own.

Hasan spent nearly all his professional life at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington DC, caring for the victims of trauma. However, he spoke openly of his deep opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hasan, who was shot while being taken into custody, was reported in stable condition at a hospital last night, authorities said.

The Associated Press reported that Hasan attracted the attention of law enforcement authorities in recent months after an Internet posting under the screen name “NidalHasan” compared Islamic suicide bombers to Japanese kamikaze pilots.

“To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate,” the posting read. “It’s more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause.”

He steered clear of female colleagues, co-workers said, and despite devout religious practices, listed himself in army records as having no religious preference.

A long-time Walter Reed colleague who referred patients to psychiatrists said co-workers avoided sending service members to Hasan because of his unusual manner and solitary work habits. He had been affected by the physical and mental injuries he saw while working as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed for nearly eight years, his aunt said.

“He must have snapped,” Noel Hasan said. “They ignored him. It was not hard to know when he was upset. He was not a fighter, even as a child and young man. But when he became upset, his face turns red.” On the rare occasions when he spoke of his work in any detail, the aunt said, Hasan told her of soldiers wracked by what they had seen. One patient had suffered burns to his face so intense “that his face had nearly melted”, she said. “He told us how upsetting that was to him.”

Hasan “did not make many friends” and “did not make friends fast”, his aunt said. He had no girlfriend and was not married. “He would tell us the military was his life,”she said.

The psychiatrist once said that “Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor” and that the US should not be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place, according to Colonel Terry Lee, a co-worker.

At the Muslim Community Center, Hasan stood out because he would sometimes show up in army fatigues, said Faizul Khan, the former imam there.