The Taliban has warned the United States of more attacks like the Fort Hood shooting rampage unless Washington ends its policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, the SITE Intelligence Group said on Tuesday.The Afghan militants also described the American army psychiatrist suspected of carrying out the shooting in Texas as a "hero", the monitoring group said, quoting a message posted on the internet.
"The recent attack on the military base in Texas warns that if the occupation policy of the American rulers continues in this way, without them folding the carpets of occupation and transgression in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is natural then that incidents and attacks similar to Texas will spread to the Pentagon and other American military centres," the message said.
"According to media reports, the hero of the attack is a Muslim psychiatrist and major in the American army, of Palestinian origin," said the message posted on jihadist forums, SITE said.
Major Nidal Hasan, a Muslim of Palestinian origin, is suspected of killing 13 people in the shooting spree at a Texas army base last week.
Hasan was due to be deployed to Afghanistan later this month and his family has said that he complained of harassment in the military and was deeply concerned about his orders to go to Afghanistan.
He has emerged from a coma after being wounded in the Fort Hood shootings.
Colleagues of Hasan have told National Public Radio they were troubled by his performance as an army psychiatrist and had discussed removing him.
The doctors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Hasan often failed to answer the phone when he was the psychiatrist on duty at the hospital outside Washington, the report said.
One hospital official said that Hasan, a devout Muslim with misgivings about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had tried to convert a patient to Islam, telling the patient his religion would save him.
Supervisors had warned Hasan that he needed to improve his job performance and the director of psychiatric resident doctors at the hospital discussed kicking Hasan out of the program, NPR said.
Psychiatrists said it was difficult to fire a doctor and that an elaborate trail of documents is required showing neglect.
Hasan's supervisors had not sufficiently documented his alleged shortcomings, it said.
Source: Military News
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