Counter Terrorism & Intelligence Analysis

This study deals with the attack on US Army Post, Ft. Hood in the year 2009. It includes the description of the attack, rationale for choosing the terrorist attack, and identification of the group responsible for the attack.

Running head: COUNTER TERRORISM & INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
Counter Terrorism & Intelligence Analysis
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1COUNTER TERRORISM & INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
Introduction
Counter terrorism can be defined as a whole gamut of strategies, techniques applied by
the intelligence agencies, business, law enforcement, government and the military in order to
prevent and combat terrorism. Counter terrorism also includes the techniques and strategies that
counters the terrorism funding (Falk & Morgenstern, 2009). This study deals with the attack on
US Army Post, Ft. Hood in the year 2009. This study will also be based on the description of the
attack, rationale for choosing the terrorist attack, and identification of the group responsible for
the attack, motives behind the attack, details on what the terrorist hoped to achieve, and a final
analysis of the response of United States towards this attack.
Thesis statement: Terrorism has long been a part of this world and the people it has
affected many nations irrespective of their internal and external development. Terrorist
organizations consider if they can strike the most developed nations, it can strike fear into the
minds of the people. Similarly, it is the duty of the developed nations to take radical actions
against the ones that are in the act of terrorism.
Description of the attack
In the incident of Fort Hood shooting, Major Nidal Malik Hasan (US Army officer) was
held responsible for injuring more than 30 people and killing 13 people in a mass shooting that
took place in the military base of Texas. Major Hasan (military psychiatrist) is accused of
allegedly calling the Muslims to attack the Americans that are under guard and are critically ill.
CCTV footages showed that the Major Hasan was wearing a Muslim cloth and a prayer cap and
was in the shop which was located near the base before the incident occurred. The Fort Hood
base is one of the largest military base of America. it has been that the soldiers were arguing

2COUNTER TERRORISM & INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
among themselves regarding posting in Afghanistan or Iraq and were arguing about the wars. As
per the video footages and evidences, Major Hasan was armed with two handguns. He then
walked into the training centre and started to fire on the fellow soldiers that were having some
medical check before their posting to Afghanistan (Fernandez & Blinder, 2018).
Rationale
The chosen attack is considered as a terrorist attack because reports suggested that the
Major Hasan had connections with the Imam Anwar al-Awlaki (Yemen based), he was
designated as a security and was actively monitored by NSA. The colleagues of Major Hasan
have mentioned that lately he was showing signs of radicalisation. Although it is important to
mention that the US government declined the request of considering the act as a terrorist.
However, it can be seen that the incident has string connections with terrorism which was
motivated by the militant Islamic motives (Carter & Carter, 2012).
Responsibility of the attack and the intention of the attack
Major Hasan was held responsible of the attack and the possible motive behind the attack
is that Major Hasan made a request to his superiors regarding the prosecution of some of his
patients due to war crimes. While, Hasan also revealed his motives in one of the interviews to
Fox News in the year 2013. Hasan said that he considered himself as the “soldier of Allah”. He
even mentioned that he was against the rules and constitution created by humans rather he is a
believer of the mandates mentioned in Islam. He said that he had issues with the Islamic
governance (Bates, 2012).

3COUNTER TERRORISM & INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
United States’ response towards the attack
After the attack, The United States Army placed restricted on carrying personal weapon
to the army bases and Fort Hood. The weapons are used only for the base security and training
purposes. The other steps that were taken include: the personnel that are interested in buying
weapons from the base needs to register their weapons with the Provost Marshal. The then
President Barack Obama along with the several senators condemned the attack and termed it as a
terrorist attack (Wild et al., 2012).
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that in the incident of Fort Hood shooting,
Major Nidal Malik Hasan (US Army officer) was held responsible for injuring more than 30
people and killing 13 people in a mass shooting that took place in the military base of Texas. the
thesis statement of the study revealed that Terrorism has long been a part of this world and the
people it has affected many nations irrespective of their internal and external development.
Terrorist organizations consider if they can strike the most developed nations, it can strike fear
into the minds of the people. Similarly, it is the duty of the developed nations to take radical
actions against the ones that are in the act of terrorism.

4COUNTER TERRORISM & INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
Reference
Bates, R. A. (2012). Dancing with wolves: Today's lone wolf terrorists. The Journal of Public
and Professional Sociology, 4(1), 1.
Carter, J. G., & Carter, D. L. (2012). Law enforcement intelligence: implications for self-
radicalized terrorism. Police practice and research, 13(2), 138-154.
Falk, O., & Morgenstern, H. (Eds.). (2009). Suicide terror: understanding and confronting the
threat. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Fernandez, M., & Blinder, A. (2018). At Fort Hood, Wrestling With Label of Terrorism.
Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/at-fort-hood-wrestling-with-
label-of-terrorism.html
Wild, J., Maher, J., Frazee, R. C., Craun, M. L., Davis, M. L., Childs, E. W., & Smith, R. W.
(2012). The Fort Hood Massacre: lessons learned from a high profile mass casualty.
Journal of trauma and acute care surgery, 72(6), 1709-1713.