Washington - US President Barack Obama was expected to speak at a memorial service Tuesday at Fort Hood, Texas, for the 13 people allegedly killed by a US Army psychiatrist last week in a crime that has triggered a wide-ranging investigation. The accused, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, has regained consciousness at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas, after suffering gunshot wounds from the policewoman who stopped the carnage, according to media reports Monday.
US federal investigators probing the shooting were studying the relationship of the gunman, an American-born Muslim, with an imam who has been linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist group, the Washington Post reported.
But Lieutenant General Robert Cone, commander of the Fort Hood base, said Monday he believed "this was an isolated incident, a very unfortunate isolated incident."
Cone, who did not comment further on the investigation, emphasized that the main focus right now was on healing from the trauma of the shootings, which took place at the largest Army base in the US - one of the major launching bases for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cone said arrangements had been made to help the 600 people he says were directly affected by the rampage, with the goal of providing behavioural health assessments as well help those seeking care.
"We are working that very hard," Cone said during a press conference at the base.
The final toll from Hasan's massacre attack included 42 or 43 wounded, 15 of whom still remained in hospital, Army officials told the German Press Agency. That number has climbed from the initial estimate of 30 wounded.
Authorities believe that Hasan walked into a facility at the base last Thursday and opened fire with two handguns. Hasan was in line to deploy to Afghanistan and reportedly told family and co-workers he opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and did not want to go.
The Washington Post reported that federal investigators were probing possible links between Hasan and Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American-born imam who had contact with two of the hijackers in the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.
Though they still believe Hasan acted alone and without direct involvement from al-Aulaqi, who left the US for Yemen in 2002, investigators are examining Hasan's computer files for possible connections to the imam, the paper reported.
Hasan attended Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, in 2001, when al-Aulaqi led the congregation there.
On Monday, the current imam at the mosque, Johari Abdul Malik, dismissed the connection as a "media sensation created around someone far away posting something on the blog."
Malik told reporters in broadcast remarks that when Hasan attended the Virginia mosque, he "understood the American culture and had a relationship to the interfaith environment of Christian, Jews" and Muslims.
"If you are trying to hide in a crowd of people, (the Virginia mosque) might be a place you could hide, but not a place where you are provoked to violence," Malik said. "I don't think we read him wrong. I think something happened to him."
Malik welcomed media restraint in not pushing the connection between Hasan and terrorism.
On Sunday, the Army's chief of staff, General George Casey Jr, expressed concern about a backlash against Muslims in the armed forces.
"Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country, is a strength," Casey said on NBC's Meet the Press. "And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."
Hasan was to have deployed in late November to Afghanistan but had voiced opposition to the war. He reportedly shouted, "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," on Thursday before firing more than 100 rounds at the Texas base's centre that prepares soldiers for deployment overseas.
The dead included 12 soldiers and one civilian.
