A shooting at Fort Hood military base in the US has left four people dead including the gunman. An official said 16 others have been wounded – some critically.
The whole base was put under lock down as police investigated the incident.
The suspect is thought to have served in Iraq and had been suffering from depression.
Witnesses say he used went from building to building firing with a semi-automatic handgun.
Lieutenant General Mark Milley told reporters: “The shooter is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. With regard to the investigation at this time there is no indication that this incident is related to terrorism although we are not ruling anything out – the investigation continues.”
The shooting is the third such incident at a military base in the United States in about six months.
President Barack Obama gave his reaction: “The folks there have sacrificed so much on behalf of our freedom. many have been on multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, they served with valour and distinction. We are heartbroken that something like this might have happened again.”
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the latest incident showed that there were problems that still needed to be addressed.
Something is not working, Hagel said, “when we have these kinds of tragedies on our bases.”
“So we’ll identify it, we’ll get the facts, and we’ll fix it,” Hagel told reporters, standing on the flight deck of theUSS Anchorage, an amphibious ship, in Hawaii.
Five years ago Fort Hood was the scene of the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in US history.
Major Nidal Hasan shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 others.He claimed to be protecting the Taliban from US troops who were about to be deployed to Afghanistan.
Hasan was sentenced to death last September.
This will reopen the larger debate about how to prevent mass shootings among America’s civilian population, an issue that rose to the top of the national agenda after the December 2012 killing of 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school.
