Pentagon Says Nidal Hasan Will Face a Military Firing Squad

The Pentagon said on Monday that President Donald Trump has approved a firing-squad execution for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the method and Trump approved it. Parnell said the secretary of the Army will set the time and place. On X, Parnell wrote that judgment day for Hasan had finally come.

The 2009 attack and the conviction

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist from Virginia, shot unarmed soldiers at the Texas base. Reuters reported that the attack killed 12 active-duty soldiers and a retired serviceman and wounded 32 others. Hasan later said he sought to avenge U.S. wars in the Muslim world. He was convicted and condemned to death in 2013.

Parnell noted that Hasan shouted Allahu Akbar during the attack. Hasan later admitted in court that he was the gunman and apologised for any mistakes, the BBC reported.

Why a firing squad is unusual

A military execution requires presidential approval under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The BBC said this would be the first U.S. military firing-squad execution since the end of the Second World War. Reuters, citing a monitoring group, said an execution would be the first military execution since 1961. Hasan is one of four inmates on the military's death row.

The Trump administration has recently added firing squad, electrocution and gas asphyxiation to permissible methods for the gravest federal crimes, Reuters reported. A military death sentence still cannot be carried out until the president approves it, and appellate review is part of the path to a final judgment.

What happens next

No date or place has been announced. The Army secretary sets both. Until that order is public, the news is the approval of the method, not a scheduled execution.

Sources

Reuters and BBC News, 6 October 2026.