President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of an Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at a Texas military base in 2009, the Pentagon announced on Monday.

Nidal Hasan will become the first person executed by the US military since 1961 when authorities carry out the sentence for his attack at Fort Hood, which also left more than two dozen people wounded.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the execution method, which Trump approved, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X.

“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote.

Al-Qaeda inspired attack killed 12 soldiers

Hasan (54), a US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire on 5 November 2009 at a medical facility inside the sprawling Fort Hood base. The base served as a staging point for soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Twelve soldiers and one civilian died in the attack. Another 30 people suffered injuries, most of them soldiers. A civilian police officer shot Hasan during the attack, leaving him partially paralysed.

Authorities said Hasan opposed US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Investigators found he had communicated online with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric linked to Al-Qaeda. US forces later killed al-Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen.

Convicted killer made no defense

A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in 2013 for the Al-Qaeda inspired mass shooting.

Hasan chose to represent himself during the trial but called no witnesses and gave no testimony. He made no attempt to deny the charges. Court-appointed defense attorneys expressed concern that he was seeking execution.

Other military base shootings

Mass shootings at US military facilities remain rare, though the country experiences frequent mass shootings in civilian settings.

In 2025, a soldier opened fire at a military base in Georgia, wounding five troops before other soldiers tackled and arrested him.

A US sailor shot dead two people and wounded another at a Hawaii base in 2019. That same year, a Saudi military student killed three people at a Florida military facility.

A Kuwaiti-born US citizen attacked two military sites in Tennessee in 2015, killing four Marines and one sailor. The FBI said a foreign terrorist group inspired the violence.

In 2013, a gunman killed 12 people and wounded eight at the Washington Navy Yard before police shot him dead.

ALSO READ: Tennessee halts executions after woman survives two lethal injections