Pentagon reveals firing squad execution of Fort Hood terrorist will be livestreamed

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By JON MICHAEL RAASCH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT and STEPHEN M. LEPORE, US SENIOR REPORTER

Published: 21:36 BST, 8 October 2026 | Updated: 01:09 BST, 9 October 2026

The US government will publicly broadcast the firing squad execution of a terrorist who murdered over a dozen soldiers in Fort Hood in 2009, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Thursday. 

The Pentagon confirmed their plan is to livestream Former Army Major Nidal Hasan being put to death by Army soldiers on December 3 on the Texas military base.

It would be the first public execution since 1937, when convicted murderer Roscoe Jackson was hanged in Missouri after being convicted of murder.  

Hasan said he launched the terror attack at Fort Hood because he was angry American troops were deployed to Afghanistan and wanted to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders.

Hasan walked into a Fort Hood medical readiness building in November 2009 carrying two guns and several magazines of ammunition. He shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' – Arabic for 'God is great!' – and opened fire on soldiers awaiting medical tests and vaccines.

The mass shooting, which killed 13 and left 32 wounded, was the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in US history. Hasan was shot and paralyzed from the waist down in the resulting gunfire and was sentenced to death in 2013.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump ordered that Hasan be put to death with a firing squad. His execution is scheduled for December 3.  

'And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things,' Hegseth said of the planned execution on Thursday.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that he will make public the scheduled firing squad execution of a former Army major

Nidal Hasan (pictured), the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people hand wounded over 30 in a mass shooting at Fort Hood is set to face death by firing squad in December

Sgt Fanuaee Vea embraces Pvt Savannah Green while trying to reach friends and family outside Fort Hood on November 5, 2009 in Killeen, Texas

'It's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad,' Hegseth added, noting how US troops will execute Hasan for targeting service members. 

He said it will be the first firing squad execution of a US service member since WWII.

A Pentagon spokesperson told the Daily Mail in a statement: 'The Secretary is correct. It will be livestreamed. Details will follow.' 

Hegseth called the firing squad decision a 'no brainer' given that Hasan himself committed murder with a firearm. 

'It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be.'

Hasan is expected to be put to death on Thursday, December 3 at 1:00pm, the same day of the week and time that he carried out his massacre. 

During his trial, Hasan told jurors he had 'switched sides' in what he called America's war with Islam.

He admitted beginning the rampage and said he wanted to stop American soldiers from being deployed to kill fellow Muslims.

During his trial, Hasan told jurors he had 'switched sides' in what he called America's war with Islam

Since 1608, at least 144 civilian prisoners have been executed by shooting in America, nearly all in Utah. Only four have occurred since 1977, when the use of capital punishment resumed after a ten-year pause

Government lawyers also said Hasan did not want to go on an impending deployment to Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense called the attack an act of workplace violence, not terrorism.

Hasan is one of four inmates on death row in the US Army's justice system.

The Justice Department announced earlier this year it would adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases.