Washington: The United States military has taken a decisive step towards executing Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding over 30 others during a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

The Pentagon confirmed on Monday that President Donald Trump has formally approved Hasan's execution by firing squad, a capital punishment method the US armed forces have not employed since 1961.

If carried out, the sentence will mark the first military execution conducted by the American armed forces in more than six decades. The 2009 rampage also left over two dozen other individuals injured.

In a social media statement published on X, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell stated: “US War Secretary Pete Hegseth has recommended, and President Donald J. Trump has approved, death by US Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan."

Parnell added: “The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come."

A court-martial panel handed down a death sentence to Hasan in 2013 following his conviction for the Fort Hood attack, which prosecutors maintained was inspired by Al-Qaeda ideology.

Throughout the military proceedings, Hasan represented himself, opted against calling witnesses, declined to testify, and mounted no defence against the formal charges. His court-appointed standby lawyers had previously expressed concern that he was intentionally seeking the death penalty.

Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire on 5 November 2009 inside a medical processing facility at the sprawling Fort Hood post. The base served as a primary deployment hub for US service members preparing to deploy to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Twelve soldiers and one civilian were killed in the assault, whilst 30 others sustained gunshot wounds. Responding civilian police officers shot Hasan during the exchange, leaving him permanently paralysed from the waist down.

Trial testimony demonstrated that Hasan strongly opposed US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Investigators also presented evidence showing he had engaged in online correspondence with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical Islamic cleric affiliated with Al-Qaeda who was subsequently killed in a 2011 US drone strike in Yemen.

While mass shootings occur with relative frequency across the United States, violent attacks inside military installations remain far less common.

In 2025, a soldier opened fire at an Army base in Georgia, injuring five service personnel before being subdued and taken into custody.

In 2019, a US Navy sailor shot and killed two people and wounded a third at a naval facility in Hawaii. That same year, a Saudi military officer on a training programme fatally shot three people at a US Navy facility in Florida.

In 2015, a Kuwaiti-born American citizen targeted two military centres in Tennessee, killing four Marines and a Navy sailor in an attack the FBI later determined was inspired by a foreign terrorist organisation.

Two years earlier, a gunman killed 12 people and injured eight others at the Washington Navy Yard in the nation's capital before being fatally shot by law enforcement officers.

ANI