One killed in shooting at US Army base

Houston (US), April 3 (IANS/EFE) At least one person, apparently the presumed gunman, was killed and eight injured in a shooting incident at the US Army base of Fort Hood in Texas state Wednesday afternoon, media reports said.

The mass shooting that authorities say is still an "active" scene at the Fort Hood army base north of Austin, Texas, local media reported.

KCEN television cited sources that identified the attacker as a white male dressed in a military combat uniform who opened fire with a .45 caliber pistol and was driving a vehicle.

CNN said that the person who was killed in the incident was the attacker himself, although that has not yet been officially confirmed.

The Fort Hood military base is one of the largest in the country and is one of the places to which soldiers who have finished their deployments in Afghanistan return.

In November 2009, it was the scene of a massacre of 13 soldiers by a Muslim military psychologist in what was at the time the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in history.

Nidal Hasan was convicted and sentenced to death last year for that mass shooting, in which 30 other soldiers were wounded.

--IANS/EFE

sd