Fort Hood shooter, Virginia mosque links probed

The Los Angeles Times said that investigators are also looking into whether Hasan had recently been following Anwar al-Awlaki's online sermons. Awlaki, a US citizen, left America in 2002 and is believed to be in Yemen, the Times said.

In a blog on his website a post today attributed to Awlaki read:

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. ...

The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.

On the Sunday talk shows, an army official warned against jumping to conclusions about Hasan, as one prominent senator said he would probe what the Army knew about the accused shooter before the massacre.

According to the Associated Press, Army Chief of Staff George Casey said investigators needed time to fully probe the attacks. "I think the speculation (on Hasan's Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers," he said on ABC's "This Week," according to the AP.

On Fox New Sunday, Senator Joseph Lieberman said he would launch a probe, the AP reported.

A day earlier, classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master's program at a military college said they complained to faculty about what they considered to be Hasan's anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance," Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on "Fox News Sunday." "He should have been gone."

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