SOLDIER SHOOTS SEVERAL DEAD AT US ARMY BASE

Texas, 4 Jumadil Akhir 1435/4 April 2014 (MINA) – A shooting has left at least four people dead, including the gunman, and 16 injured at a US Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, the site of another mass shooting in 2009, the US military said.

Fort Hood commander Lt Gen. Mark Milley told a news conference that the shooter was a serving soldier and that he had died on the scene from self-inflicted gunshot wounds after being confronted by a military police officer.

Milley said there was no indication the incident was linked to “terrorism”, Al Jazera quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

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Soldiers and their families waited outside for permission to re-enter the base after the shooting.

He told reporters the soldier, who he did not name because his family had not yet been informed, had served in Iraq for four months in 2011. The soldier was being treated for depression and anxiety, and was being evaluated for possible post-traumatic stress disorder.

Milley did not draw a link between the gunman’s medical evaluation and the shooting.

Al Jazeera’s Rosalind Jordan, reporting from Washington DC, said there were chaotic scenes around the base in the hours after the shooting, with numerous helicopters and ambulances at the site.

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“Fort Hood is one of the most heavily populated and used army bases in the US and is known for sending more troops to Iraq than any other US military base,” Jordan said.

In the 2009 incident , 13 people were killed and more than 30 wounded in what was the deadliest assault on a domestic US military installation in history.

In September, a gunman opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 and wounding four before being slain by police. Last month, a civilian shot dead a sailor aboard a ship at a US Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia. (T/P04/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)