Trump approves firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan

President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, a former US Army major and psychiatrist who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding dozens more in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, according to multiple outlets including The Guardian, CBS News, Reuters and the Associated Press. Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the decision in a social media post, several outlets reported.

Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 after a court-martial found him guilty of the attack, which several outlets, including CNA and the Washington Times, reported left more than two dozen to 32 people wounded in addition to the 13 killed. The Straits Times and France 24 reported that Hasan later described the shooting as retaliation for US wars in the Muslim world.

The execution would be the first carried out by the US military since 1961, according to the BBC, the Jerusalem Post and France 24, and the first using a firing squad since World War Two, as reported by NBC News and BBC News. The New York Post reported that the decision followed a recommendation from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a detail not reported by other outlets.

Several center and right-leaning outlets, including France 24 and the Washington Times, noted that the date and location of the execution have not yet been set by the Army. The Daily Express linked the announcement to the recent failed execution of Christa Pike, though no other outlet in the supplied material provided this context.

How the coverage differed

Coverage across the political spectrum was largely uniform in reporting the core facts: Trump's approval, the firing squad method, Hasan's 2009 attack, and the historic nature of the execution method. Outlets across all three leanings, including Al Jazeera English, Reuters and The Epoch Times, used nearly identical headlines centered on the firing squad approval.

Some differences emerged in framing and added detail. The Washington Times and New York Post, both right-leaning, used the terms "jihadi" and referenced Hegseth's recommendation respectively, details not found in left- or center-leaning coverage. The Straits Times and France 24, both center-leaning, included Hasan's stated motive of retaliation for US wars in the Muslim world, a detail largely absent from left- and right-leaning summaries in the supplied material.

NBC News and BBC News emphasized the historical significance of the firing squad method specifically, noting it had not been used by the US military since World War Two, while other outlets focused more on the 1961 benchmark for any military execution. The Daily Express was alone among the sources in connecting the news to a separate, unrelated execution case involving Christa Pike.

What is still unclear

The exact date and location of Hasan's execution have not been set, according to France 24 and the Washington Times. It also remains unclear from the supplied material what role, if any, Hegseth's recommendation played beyond the single report from the New York Post, and whether other officials were involved in the decision-making process.