Alleged Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan tried to contact men linked to al-Qaeda, ABC News reported on Monday, quoting two officials with access to classified case papers.
A screenshot of the website of Imam Anwar al-Awlaki.
Hasan is currently the only suspect in a deadly shooting spree at a US Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, in which thirteen people were killed and 29 wounded.
The suspect was shot by civilian policewoman Kimberley Munley during the incident, and on Saturday regained consciousness at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas. A hospital spokesman says he is able to talk.
One senior lawmaker told ABC News that the CIA had refused to brief the intelligence committee on any knowledge they may have had linking Hasan to al-Qaeda, but that such documents and files would now be reexamined.
Senator Joe Lieberman on Sunday called for the US Army to investigate whether it had missed signs of Hasan's Islamic extremism, telling the Fox news network that "There are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, the website of Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born imam at Virginia mosques attended by both Hasan and three Sept. 11 hijackers, praised Hasan for being a "man of conscience" and doing "the right thing."
Awlaki, who currently resides in Yemen, said on his website that any decent Muslim cannot serve in the US Army, which "is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest," unless he intends to "follow the footsteps of men like Nidal."
The statement stressed that Hasan's actions had drawn attention to the dilemma of Muslims living in the US, many of whom are forced to either "betray Islam or betray their nation."
"We would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American second," a military doctor who had studied with Hasan told ABC. "And we questioned how somebody could take an oath of office … and have that type of conflict."
AP contributed to this report.
