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to himself as an “Arab soldier crusader” and wrote a poem about fighting Crusaders
during one of the Crusades.
Major Nidal Malik Hassan
Twelve U.S. service members and one civilian Department of Defense employee
were killed and 32 were wounded when Major Nidal Malik Hassan opened fire
inside a meeting room inside the base at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009.
Hassan was born in Virginia in 1970, graduated from Virginia Tech in 1992,
and joined the U.S. Army in 1995. He later entered medical school and became a
resident in the psychiatric program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he
began to show outward signs of his radicalization. At a post residency graduate pro-
gram at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, he became even
more radicalized to the point where he fully embraced violent Islamic thought. He
gave several presentations espousing the Koran and stated that one of the risks of
having Muslim Americans in the military was the possibility of fratricidal murder
of fellow service members. In August 2007, instead of giving a lecture on a health
care subject, Hassan gave a presentation entitled, “Is the War on Terror a War on
Islam?: An Islamic Perspective,” in which Hassan argued that the U.S. military
operations are a war against Islam. He continued days and weeks later, openly sup-
porting suicide bombers and saying that he put religion above the United States
Constitution. Hassan was reported numerous times to superiors, who, in an effort
to remain politically correct, did not act, resulting in the attack.
Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly
On December 11, 2010, two explosive devices detonated in Stockholm, Sweden,
killing one person and injuring two. The fatal injury was caused to Taimour
Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen (Figure 14.3). Abdaly moved
from Sweden to Britain in 2001, where he moved to Luton, an area that was home
to some of the July 2005 British bombers. He moved to Luton to study sports
therapy, and in 2004, he married Mona Thwarny and had three children, including
Figure 14.3
Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly.
