Fort Hood Shooter Asks to Join ISIS

Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan has no chance of leaving military custody alive—but he'd really like to be in Iraq or Syria, where he admires what ISIS is doing. Hasan's lawyer says his client, on death row at Fort Leavenworth, has written to the leader of the militant group asking to become a citizen of the Islamic caliphate the group has declared, Fox reports. "I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State," Hasan wrote. "It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don't compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers."

Hasan's lawyer appears to believe the letter could actually help his client, who was sentenced to death a year ago for killing 13 people in the 2009 shooting rampage at the Texas base. The letter "underscores how much of his life, actions, and mental thought process are driven by religious zeal," the lawyer says, which reinforces his belief that "the military judge committed reversible error" by not allowing Hasan to testify about how his religious beliefs motivated the shooting. The lawyer says the two-page letter to ISIS was written sometime in the last few weeks, reports CNN. (More Nidal Malik Hasan stories.)