The 2007 picture provided by the Uniformed Services University of the Health... (AP Photo/Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences)
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — An Army psychiatrist who authorities say went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood was so conflicted over what to tell fellow soldiers about fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan that a local Islamic leader was deeply troubled by it, the leader said Saturday.
Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said he was disturbed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's persistent questioning and recommended the mosque reject Hasan's request to become a lay Muslim leader at the sprawling Army post.
Danquah said Hasan never expressed anger toward the Army or indicated any plans for violence, but during the second of two conversations they had over the summer, Hasan seemed almost incoherent, he said.
"But what if a person gets in and feels that it's just not right?" Danquah recalled Hasan asking him.
"I told him, `There's something wrong with you,'" Danquah told The Associated Press during an interview at Fort Hood on Saturday. "I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."
Authorities accuse Hasan of firing more than 100 rounds Thursday in a soldier processing center at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 29 others in the worst mass shooting on a military facility in the U.S. At the start of the attack, Hasan reportedly jumped up on a desk and shouted "Allahu akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" Hasan, 39, was seriously wounded by police and is being treated in a military hospital.
The military has said Hasan was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan, but family members suggested he was trying avoid serving overseas.
Hasan's relatives who live in the Palestinian territories have said they had heard from family members that Hasan felt mistreated in the Army as a Muslim.
"He told (them) that as a Muslim committed to his prayers he was discriminated against and not treated as is fitting for an officer and American," said Mohammed Malik Hasan, 24, a cousin, told the AP from his home on the outskirts of Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. "He hired a lawyer to get him a discharge."
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