New Delhi: The Pentagon has announced the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad. This is the first time in 60 years that the country will witness a military execution.
Nidal Hasan, the Army major in question, is accused of fatally shooting 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009 and injuring another 32.
While he was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013, a recent recommendation by US defense secretary Pete Hegseth has determined the mode of execution.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on X that Hegseth “has recommended – and President Donald J. Trump has approved – death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan”.
The execution will take place on 3 December, and will be the first military execution by firing squad since the end of World War 2.
What did Hasan do?
Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist from Virginia, is a US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent. He opened fire at a medical facility in Fort Hood, a sprawling military base in Texas. The base served as a staging point for soldiers who were to be deployed in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The killings proved to be the deadliest non-combat attack on an American military base. Here, 12 of the dead and 30 of the wounded were soldiers, The Guardian claimed. A police officer who responded to the attack shot and partially paralysed Hasan after the mass shooting.
Hasan later admitted to being the gunman in court, and apologised for “any mistakes”, according to a BBC report. In his court-martial in 2013, he said that he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan through his actions.
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Executions by firing squad
Hasan is currently one of four inmates on the US military’s death row in the US.
His execution was approved by the US president, in keeping with military law. It also required appellate review and a final judgment on its legality to move forward, the BBC reported.
While the military death penalty had been deemed unconstitutional by the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in 1983, it was reinstated a year later under President Ronald Reagan.
Military execution in the US is different from state executions, under which a majority of executions in the country are carried out. State executions are legal in 27 of the country’s 50 states.
In 2025, Trump also had the federal death penalty reinstated, after the Justice Department had issued a moratorium on it under his predecessor, Joe Biden. The federal death penalty, although rarely used, is applicable in all 50 states.
Additionally, death by firing squad in the US is relatively uncommon. It was last carried out in the country, in South Carolina in 2025. This was the first time the method was used in the US in 15 years. Four other states in the US – Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah – allow the use of a firing squad.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
The way this frames Nidal Hasan’s execution news is hilarious. Asking ‘What was his crime?’ like he’s some mid-level army officer who got caught in a financial scam, while completely dancing around the radical Islamic ideology that actually drove him to murder 13 of his own fellow soldiers.
It’s the exact same sanitized playbook they use every single time including the recent flydubai terrorist act.