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Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan 'writes letter to Isis' asking to become 'citizen' of Islamic State

US military psychiatrist Hasan is on death row for killing 13 people

Heather Saul
Saturday 30 August 2014 13:15 BST
Major Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base in 2009
Major Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base in 2009 (EPA)

The US military psychiatrist who was sentenced to death for the Fort Hood shooting rampage has reportedly written a letter to the leader of the Islamic State asking to become a “citizen soldier".

Major Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base in 2009.

In an undated letter to the Isis leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, obtained by Fox News, Hassan allegedly wrote: "I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State.

"It would be an honour for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don't compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers."

Hasan was found guilty of more than 40 counts of murder and attempted murder after he opened fire at a medical facility within the Fort Hood military base where soldiers due to be deployed to Afghanistan were getting final check-ups.

During his trial, he told the court he had “switched sides” in what he described as a US war on Islam.

Isis declared its occupied territories a ‘caliphate’ in June after seizing swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Defined as meaning “the government under a caliph”, it saw Isis declare Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the spiritual leader of all Islam.

On Friday, the group released a video apparently showing the beheading of a Kurdish man in Iraq as a warning to Kurds fighting the group in the country.

The video, entitled “A Message in Blood”, was posted online hours after another video purporting to show the mass execution of up to 250 Syrian soldiers in the desert.

The US President Barack Obama approved air strikes against Isis in Iraq earlier this month.

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