Obama to speak at Ft. Hood service

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President Obama is slated to speak at a memorial service today at the grieving Ft. Hood Army base in Texas, where a military psychiatrist is accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage.

The service, scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. local time, will be a traditional military affair, with a sermon, a roll call of the dead and a rifle volley. About 3,000 spectators, as well as the families of the 12 soldiers and one civilian killed, are expected to attend.

The tribute comes amid new questions about whether the shooting, in which dozens were also wounded, could have been prevented.

Authorities said Monday that the FBI and Army had apparently looked into contacts between the suspected gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and a Yemen-based militant Islamist prayer leader with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Investigators are poring over numerous e-mails sent by Hasan to Anwar al Awlaki and apparently to other Islamist figures, said a federal law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
But the official said the information authorities had at the time did not suggest that Hasan -- a devout Muslim who was reportedly despondent over his scheduled deployment to Afghanistan -- was growing violent or was involved in ‘any terrorist planning or plotting.’

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