Breaking news, Fort Hood, Texas. 3:45 p.m.

Seven dead and twenty injured were initially reported, with one shooter in custody and another on the run. Moments ago a third shooter was identified, and had opened fire at the base. Theories that it was a lone wolf  (or two) with PTSD are no longer applicable.

Local schools are on lockdown. Fort Hood sends an enormous percentage of troops to overseas theatres of war, so there was some speculation that this is an organized attack on the base.

The term “all military” has been used, which means that the shooters and the victims are U.S. military personnel. There was some fear of a Fort Dix type scenario, but it looks like that is not the case. FBI are on their way to the scene, and President Obama is being briefed.

The attack occurred about 1:30 p.m. Central time at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Center, where troops are processed before deployment and upon their return from combat tours abroad, cable news networks reported.

An estimated 100,000 people are at Fort Hood, near Waco,Texas; and the entire post (base) is on lockdown. It is the largest military installation in the world. The shooting started half an hour before a graduation of some kind was to have commenced.

No word from the military base whether the victims are military or civilians

    At least seven people are dead and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, the base’s public affairs office told NBC News on Thursday.

    The official would not give his name nor additional details. It was unknown whether victims are soldiers or civilians. One gunman was reportedly in custody and another was on the loose, NBC News said. A third shooter may be involved, according to NBC News affiliate KCEN.

    KCEN in Waco reported that the second suspect may be holed up in a building on the post.

    The base was reportedly on lockdown. Two nearby school districts were also being locked down.

    Fort Hood is adjacent to Killeen, and 60 miles northeast of Austin. The sprawling complex is home to at least 4,929 active duty officers and 45,414 enlisted. Civilian employees total nearly 9,000.

BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and msnbc.com
updated 4:41 p.m. ET Nov. 5, 2009

At least seven people were killed and 20 others were wounded in a mass shooting incident Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, where at least one suspect was believed to be in custody, NBC News and NBC affiliate KCEN-TV reported.

More shots were reported later in the afternoon, reported KCEN of Waco, which said no further details were immediately available.  

It was unknown whether the victims were all soldiers or civilians at Fort Hood, one of the largest military complexes in the world. The base was on lockdown, as were schools in the area.

At least one suspect was in custody, reported KCEN, which quoted a source as saying at least one of the shooters had a high-powered rifle. The station reported that at least four SWAT officers were among those wounded.

A spokesman for Fort Hood said the shootings took place at two locations around 1:30 p.m.: the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center and Howze Theater.

The spokesman, Sgt. Major Jamie Posten, said processing center was where soldiers “cycle through as they prepare to deploy.” That complex is on the West side of post, off Battalion Avenue.

Greg Schannep, an aide to Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, who was on the post to attend a graduation service, told the Austin American-Statesman that a soldier with blood on his uniform ran past him and said a man was shooting.

The Temple Independent School District was on a “soft” lockdown. Parents were asked to pick their children up at the normal times, although they could experience delays.

Agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on their way to the post, federal officials said.

Fort Hood is adjacent to Killeen, about 60 miles northeast of Austin. The sprawling complex is home to at least 4,929 active-duty officers and 45,414 enlisted. Civilian employees total nearly 9,000.

A spokesman for the Army, Lt. Col. Lee M. Packnett, said he was unaware whether security measures were put in place at other military bases. A spokesman at Fort Lewis, Wash., said the incident was being treated as isolated.

President Barack Obama was briefed on the shootings, press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban said officials from several federal agencies are still collecting information on the shootings. "Because this is early in this event, we cannot at this time confirm motives behind these shootings," she said.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, said in a statement: “I am shocked and saddened by today’s outburst of violence at Fort Hood that has cost seven of our brave service members their lives and has gravely injured others. My heart goes out to their loved ones.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign spokesperson said the governor was in Denton, scheduled to attend a campaign event, when word of the shooting occurred. There was no word on whether he had left Denton or whether he was headed to Fort Hood.

Milly Land, who works at the base fitness center, said she was headed for the graduation ceremony at 2 p.m. at the Howze Theater when the campus was locked down. She went back to the fitness center. She said she spoke by phone with friends at the soldier processing center, who said a gunman walked in about 1:30, walked to the medical area of the processing center, and started shooting. A second gunman was shooting at the theater next door, she said.

Fort Hood has seen other violence in recent years. In September 2008, a 21-year-old 1st Cavalry Division soldier shot his lieutenant to death and then killed himself. Spc. Jody Michael Wirawan of Eagle River, Alaska, shot himself to death after shooting 1st Lt. Robert Bartlett Fletcher, 24, of Jensen Beach, Fla. to death.

At least nine people were killed and as many as 30 wounded today at an army base in Texas when two gunmen opened fire.

One of the gunmen was apparently under arrest and the other was still on the loose.

The FBI were on the way to the scene to the base, which was in a state of "lockdown" tonight with no vehicles allowed in or out of the sprawling 340 square mile military installation. The shootings took place about a half hour before a scheduled graduation event involving universities located on the base, 50 miles south of Waco.

The motive of the shooters was not immediately known.

While there were initial fears that it could be the first terrorist attack on US soil since the 9/11 attacks, it is equally possible it could be disgruntled members of the service or civilians with a grudge.

They opened fire at troops in Fort Hood at a processing centre where service men and women pass through on the way to and from Afghanistan and Iraq. It is the biggest US base in the world.

Speaking on CNN, lieutenant general Russel Honore, a former commander general at the Fort Hood compound, said he had been told that two men, armed with M16 rifles, carried out the attack.

"One was neutralised and the other was cornered," he said.

Fort Hood houses some 4,929 active duty officers and 45,414 enlisted members of the army.

Barack Obama, the US president, was informed of the shooting.

Domestic killings are not normally relayed to the president but his advisers opted to tell him because a military base was involved.

With details still sketchy, Sergeant-major Jamie Posten said: "At this point right now, the shots were fired into soldiers at the processing centre. There was more than one shooter."

Given there was still one shooter on the loose, the base was in lockdown.

All roads in and out of the base were closed.

Twelve people have been killed and 31 injured in a pair of shootings at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, a US Army spokesman has said.

One person has been arrested and at least one more is on the run, officials said. The base has been locked down.

NBC News network said the two suspects were in military uniform and that the shooter-at-large was believed to have a high-powered sniper rifle.

Fort Hood, near the town of Killeen, is the largest US base in the world.

Home to about 40,000 US troops, the base lies between Austin and Waco, about 60 miles (97 km) from each city.

It is not yet clear whether those killed and injured are civilians or military personnel.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the incident. He is expected to comment during a scheduled briefing.

Army spokesman Lt Col Nathan Banks at the Pentagon told the Associated Press news agency the shootings had begun at about 1330 (1930 GMT) on Thursday at a personnel and medical processing centre at Fort Hood.

He said two shooters had been involved.

The second incident took place at a theatre on the base, he said. Emergency response officials named the site as Howze Theatre.

NBC reports that the suspect in custody is in his 20s.

At this point all those involved are believed to be military personnel, ABC reports. It says there are conflicting reports about whether there is a third shooter.

A serviceman stationed at Fort Hood who asked to remain anonymous told the BBC: "I heard the emergency announcement over the speakers outside and saw people rushing to get indoors.

"In our office we're okay but we're hearing about the deaths. It's horrible and very shocking.

"We are still on lockdown. I am hearing that at least nine people may be dead. This is so terrible and frightening."

'Saddened'

The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says there are military police and Swat teams on the scene, and the FBI is on the way from Austin and Waco. Schools in the area have also been locked down.

Units at Fort Hood are among those deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some will have returned from there, our correspondent says. The base has a centre that deals with combat stress, he adds.

Hilary Shine, of the Killeen Fire Department told the BBC's News Channel Fort Hood was like a small city.

"It has schools, a hospital, a convenience store even. And it has a large daytime population - including civilians working on the base - with as many as 80,000 in this area during the daytime."

Local congressman John Carter, speaking to NBC News, said gunfire had erupted half an hour before a graduation ceremony was due to begin.

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson said in a statement: "I am shocked and saddened by today's outburst of violence at Fort Hood that has cost seven of our brave service members their lives and has gravely injured others.

"My heart goes out to their loved ones."

Too bad he survived...
I foresee a long jurisdictional fight in courtrooms with lawyers fighting to get him off deathrow....
It will be a nice chance for those rats to prove themselves and get big (money) cases later.

But lets hope justice will win in the end.

killing a killer doesn't solve anything...read/watch the numbers on executions and crime in the states of the US where they still execute people...

MontyB sez: On the contrary, it prevents re-offending and that is a worthwhile outcome.

On the contrary, it prevents re-offending and that is a worthwhile outcome.

On the contrary, it prevents re-offending and that is a worthwhile outcome.

abot Montie´s:



I do not think that Death Penalty prevents re-offending by others from an exemplary POV.

Rattler

I would point out that the likes of Sirhan Sirhan, have not done so either. So it appears that there are other means of restraining their impulses other than...the final solution.

 hangem    :behead:  :crux   

Any need to keep Charlie Manson alive all these years?  Maybe we can reform him.
Especially if you like supporting murderers into their old age 

The reason I dislike the death penalty is that there is to much chance for an innocent to receive the sentence. -snip-

For me the reason to be *absolutely* against it as a concept (however clear it might be in the individual case that it is not

Just this belief by itself or the doubt of whether it might be correct is argument enough to get rid of Death Penalty.

And, call me stupid, I would say the same if the victim was one of my tribe, I belive in an overall idea of what is "right, just and legal" that we need to seperate from our feelings of revenge in those issues.

This does not mean that I would not hunt the ETA member that blew one of my family to the other side down personally, but I would be well aware of the consequences and be simply breaking the law.

Rattler

So, you're saying it's against your beliefs that the government should not kill someone after a judicial trial and due process but in a fit of revenge it's okay for you to do it?

That makes no sense.

So, you're saying it's against your beliefs that the government should not kill someone after a judicial trial and due process but in a fit of revenge it's okay for you to do it?

It is now clear US army major Nidal Hasan had a series of connections to the Islamist cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi. For those of us who have studied, with increasing concern, the extreme teachings of this cleric, this tragedy is the inevitable consequence of unchecked Islamist radicalisation. This situation has been made all the more distressing by the apparent lack of concern shown by the US intelligence and military authorities in taking Aulaqi's influence seriously. I fear that, in the United Kingdom, the authorities are similarly turning a blind eye to Aulaqi's followers.

Inayat Bunglawala is right to say that most Islamic scholars, particularly in Britain, are opponents of the extremist fighting talk that is replete in Aulaqi's sermons. Even within political Islam, Aulaqi's teachings fall into the most extreme, al-Qaida-aligned territory. What should concern us most, however, is this: Aulaqi has a huge internet following among Muslims, all over the world. His sermons, delivered in word perfect English and Arabic, are downloaded and shared by vast numbers of people in the Middle East and in the west.

Most disturbingly of all, Aulaqi has been actively promoted by some of the United Kingdom's most prominent Islamist organisations. Bunglawala's description of Aulaqi's relationship with these organisations is an understatement of the seriousness of the problem. There are two points that are central to Bunglawala's discussion of Aulaqi's connections in the UK. The first is that when Islamic organisations began inviting Aulaqi to this country in the late 1990s, Aulaqi showed "no hint of his later extremism". The second, that Aulaqi only became radicalised due to the US war against Iraq in 2003, and is therefore somehow the product of western foreign policy. However, under greater scrutiny, neither of these claims stand up, even from the data available in the public domain on Aulaqi.

Aulaqi has been a supporter of violent jihad from early on, with links to al-Qaida and recruiters for the Taliban stretching back to the late 1990s. According to Charles E Allen, the US under-secretary for intelligence and analysis and chief intelligence officer, Aulaqi is the former spiritual leader to three of the 9/11 hijackers. He was also identified by the 9/11 Commission report as having provided advice to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Bunglawala refers to an interview with Aulaqi in the National Geographic from 2001, in which Aulaqi's responses appear reasonable and moderate. But in a contemporary interview with IslamOnline, the website founded by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, he suggested that the 9/11 attacks may have been carried out by Mossad.

But it is what happened from 2002 onwards that is more important in the UK context. Since that date, Aulaqi has been invited to speak in person, or via video link-up, by a large number of private Muslim organisations, university Islamic societies and registered charities that have benefited from government funding. Some of these speeches have been very politically extreme. Since then, a host of organisations and individuals who operate within the Islamist landscape in this country who have, at one point or another, praised or defended Aulaqi.

I have posted a timeline of British Islamic support for Aulaqi on the Spittoon blog. In June 2003, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), organised a series of meetings with Aulaqi as guest speaker. Later that year, at an event held at the East London Mosque (ELM) in December, Aulaqi addressed Muslims on the subject of terrorism arrests in the UK and urged them to never report on or turn over their fellow Muslims, under any circumstances. Two months prior, in October 2003, the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE), an organisation closely associated with the ELM, invited Aulaqi to speak at its Expoislamia event.

In January 2009, ELM hired out its premises for an event, entitled The End of Time, with Aulaqi this time as delivering a video message. In spite of the fact that Aulaqi's "presence" at the event was reported in the national press, ELM did not cancel the meeting, insisting it had simply rented out its hall for the event.

This summer, the Cordoba Foundation sponsored an event in the Kensington and Chelsea town hall called Beyond Guantánamo, which was to feature an online video address by Aulaqi. That event was organised by an organisation called Cageprisoners, a successor organisation to Stop Political Terror, which also campaigns for Muslims who have been detained or imprisoned. The Cageprisoners website contains an extensive and friendly interview between Aulaqi and Moazzam Begg, one of its directors and a former Guantánamo detainee.

As late as 2005, Bunglawala and Aulaqi were both listed as supporters of Stop Political Terror. Many of those supporters were vocally defending Aulaqi until last week, and defaming those concerned about this man as Muslim-haters or self-loathing Muslims. Some are now arguing that Aulaqi only recently became a jihadist. This is simply not correct.

Although I believe the leadership of the Aulaqi-supporting organisations cannot have mistaken him for a moderate, the same does not necessarily hold true for their rank and file. Ordinary Muslims, turning up at events at which Aulaqi was promoted, may well have taken on trust the assertion that he is a religious authority with prodigious qualifications and a sincere and important message. It is these ordinary members who have been imperilled, by being exposed to jihadi theology in its purest form. They have been betrayed by their leadership.