Suspected Fort Hood shooter is awake, talking

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — the suspect in the mass shooting last week at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas — is conscious and talking to medical staff, a military hospital spokeswoman said Monday.

Maj. Hasan, 39, was shot four times in the torso in the attack Thursday in which 13 people were killed and 29 others wounded. The rampage took place inside a post processing center and ended when Maj. Hasan was shot by a civilian police officer.

The Army psychiatrist is being treated at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, roughly 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood, the country’s largest military installation.

Maj. Hasan’s ventilator was removed Saturday, but he remains in stable condition in the hospital’s intensive-care unit, said hospital spokeswoman Maria Gallegos.

Maj. Hasan has been able to talk since the ventilator was removed. But officials will not say whether he is speaking to investigators.

Officials also said Monday that life at the base in returning to normal, including soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, but not at the processing center where Maj. Hasan fired roughly 100 rounds with a semi-automatic handgun.

President Obama is scheduled to attend a memorial service Tuesday at Fort Hood.

Fifteen of the surviving victims remain hospitalized — including eight in intensive care.

The emerging profile of Maj. Hasan is a Muslim and military officer unhappy with being in the Army and increasingly opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He earned a medical degree through the Army in 2002.

There are also reports of a possible connections to people associated with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Maj. Hasan’s family reportedly worshiped at an Islamic center in Northern Virginia where two of the terrorist hijackers also attended services.

Witnesses said Maj. Hasan, of Jordanian descent, began his rampages by bowing his head and saying: Allahu akbar, which translates to God is great.