Investigators searched today for the motive behind a mass shooting at a sprawling US army base in Texas, in which an army psychiatrist trained to treat war wounded is suspected of killing 13 people.
A spokesman at the base said the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States of immigrant parents, had been shot four times by security police and was unconscious but in stable condition.
A woman died overnight from her wounds, raising the toll from the incident to 13 dead and 30 wounded, said Colonel John Rossi, a spokesman at Fort Hood, the biggest military facility in the world.
Mjr Hasan was "stable and in one of our civilian hospitals," Col Rossi said. "He's on a ventilator."
The army refused to discuss possible motives for the shooting while the investigation is under way. "We're not going to speculate on motives," Col Rossi told reporters at the base, from where thousands of troops are deployed to combat zones.
President Barack Obama today urged the public not to jump to conclusions on the motive. "We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," he said. He also ordered flags on government buildings flown at half-mast.
The gunman, with two guns including a semi-automatic weapon, opened fire apparently without warning at the crowded Soldiers Readiness Processing Centre, where troops were getting medical check-ups before leaving for foreign deployments.
Mr Hasan (39), had spent years counselling severely wounded and traumatised soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington, DC, many of whom had lost limbs during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He had been transferred to Fort Hood in April and was to have been deployed to Afghanistan. His cousin, Nader Hasan, has said in media interviews that he was very reluctant to be deployed overseas and had agitated not to be sent. "We've known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare," he said.
Nader Hasan also said his cousin had complained, as a Muslim, of harassment by fellow soldiers.
American Muslim groups issued statements expressing regret over the incident and stressing that it appeared to have been carried out by a single disturbed individual.
"Thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims serve honourably everyday in all four branches of the US military and in the National Guard," the Arab American Institute said.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee deplored the shooting by what it called a "rogue" gunman, but suggested Muslim American communities take special precautions "due to the potential of a backlash against these communities."
The Fort Hood commander, Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, speaking to reporters, said there was no evidence this was a terrorist attack.
Fort Hood personnel have accounted for more suicides than any other army post since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, with 75 by July of this year. Nine of those occurred in 2009, counting two in overseas war zones.
The camp, about 100km from the state capital Austin, is home to about 50,000 troops. Established in 1942, it stretches across 878 square km in central Texas and is the state's largest single employer.