Police: Virginia Tech shooter an English major, 23

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- The gunman who killed 30 people at Virginia Tech's Norris Hall before turning the gun on himself was student Cho Seung-hui, university police Chief Wendell Flinchum said Tuesday.
University officials said they were still trying to determine whether Cho was responsible for an earlier shooting at a dormitory that left two dead.
However, Flinchum said ballistics tests show that one of the two guns recovered at Norris Hall was used at Norris and at the dorm, both located on the 26,000-student campus. (Watch police disclose new information about the shooter )
Authorities are still investigating whether Cho had any accomplices in planning or executing Monday's rampage, Col. Steven Flaherty of the Virginia State Police said.
"It certainly is reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places, but we don't have the evidence to take us there at this particular point in time," Flaherty said.
Cho, a 23-year-old South Korean and resident alien, lived at the university's Harper Hall, Flinchum said. He was an English major, the chief said.
Cho was a loner and authorities are having a hard time finding information about him, said Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations.
A department of Homeland Security official said Cho came to the United States in 1992, through Detroit, Michigan. He had lawful permanent residence, via his parents, and renewed his green card in October 2003, the official said.
His residence was listed as Centreville, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
The university and police are still in the process of releasing the names of the 32 people killed in Monday's shootings. (Watch how some are asking why warnings weren't issued sooner )
"What went on during that incident certainly caused tremendous chaos and panic in Norris Hall," Flaherty said, describing how victims were found in four classrooms and in the stairwell of the school's engineering science and mechanics building.
Doctor recalls 'amazing' injuries
A doctor at a Blacksburg hospital described the injuries he saw Monday as "amazing" and the shooter as "brutal."
"There wasn't a shooting victim that didn't have less than three bullet wounds in them," said Dr. Joseph Cacioppo of Montgomery Regional Hospital.
Even among the less serious injuries, Cacioppo said, "we saw one patient that had a bullet wound to the wrist, one to the elbow and one to the thigh. We had another one with a bullet wound to the abdomen, one to the chest and one to the head."
A source familiar with the investigation said the weapons found at Norris were a Walther .22-caliber semi-automatic and a 9 mm Glock -- both with the serial numbers filed off. (Watch how quickly these guns can be fired, reloaded )
As questions continued to arise about how police reacted to the first shooting at the dorm, Steger on Tuesday defended the response, saying police believed it to be "a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide" that was contained to one dorm room.
Police cordoned off the 895-student West Ambler Johnston dorm and all residents were told about the shooting as police looked for witnesses, Steger said.
Authorities were still investigating what they believed was an "isolated incident" when the slaughter occurred at Norris Hall.
"I don't think anyone could have predicted that another event was going to take place two hours later," Steger said, adding that it would've been difficult to warn every student because most were off campus at the time. (Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs )
Steger told reporters Monday that when police responded to Norris Hall they found the front doors chained shut. The gunfire had stopped by the time they reached the second floor, he said.
The gunman killed 31 people, including himself, and wounded 15 in Norris Hall classrooms.
Student: Gunman 'seemed very thorough'
The gunman was dressed "almost like a Boy Scout" and wore a black ammunition vest, said a student who survived by pretending to lie dead on a classroom floor.
"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing," said Erin Sheehan. "He seemed very thorough about it, getting almost everyone down, I pretended to be dead." (Watch student describe surviving by playing dead )
The shooter, who remained quiet throughout the rampage, came back 30 seconds after the first round of gunfire and Sheehan and her classmates tried to barricade the door with their bodies, she said.
After the shooter couldn't get in, he began firing through the door, Sheehan said. Of the 25 students in her German class, Sheehan was one of four able to walk out on her own when police arrived.
As of midday Tuesday, officials were still releasing the names of victims, which include a marching band member from Georgia and an Israeli Holocaust survivor who headed the engineering and science department. (Full story)
The university has scheduled a convocation for 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. President Bush and the first lady are scheduled to attend.
Classes have been canceled for the rest of the week, and Norris Hall will be closed for the remainder of the semester, Steger said. Student Emily Alderman said students were sending out instant messages urging each other to wear their Virginia Tech Hokie gear in a sign of unity.
There have been two bomb threats at the university this month, the latest of which came Friday. Flinchum said Tuesday they were unrelated to the shootings. (Watch gunfire on the campus )
Last August, the first day of class was cut short at Virginia Tech by a manhunt for an escaped prisoner accused of killing a Blacksburg hospital security guard and a sheriff's deputy.
Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States occurred in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.

Witness survives by pretending to be dead

(CNN) -- A gunman who killed at least 30 people at one of two shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech Monday was dressed "almost like a Boy Scout," said a woman who survived by pretending to lie dead on a classroom floor.
"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing," said Erin Sheehan who was in one of the Norris Hall classrooms where the second shooting incident took place.
Sheehan described the gunman -- who later shot and killed himself according to police -- as a young man wearing a short-sleeved tan shirt and black ammunition vest.
"He seemed very thorough about it -- getting almost everyone down -- I pretended to be dead," she said. (Student survives by playing dead )
"He was very silent," said Sheehan, one of only four students in her 25-student German class who were not shot.
The gunman left for about 30 seconds, but returned because "I guess he heard us still talking."
"We forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, because the door would not lock," Sheehan said.
The man tried three more times to force his way in then began firing through the door, she said.
Student Tiffany Otey was taking a test inside Norris Hall when the shooting began. She and about 20 other people took refuge behind a locked door in a teacher's office. Police officers with bulletproof vests and machine guns were in the area.(Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs )
"They were telling us to put our hands above our head and if we didn't cooperate and put our hands above our heads they would shoot," Otey said. "I guess they were afraid, like us -- like the shooter was going to be among one of us." (Watch students react to shooting )
Some students leaped from windows to escape.
"We heard some loud banging, and we weren't sure if it was construction or not. We heard people screaming, so everybody in the class huddled in the back," said Josh Wargo, a student who was in Norris Hall. "We were going to go out the front door, and someone opened the door, and it sound like the shots were being fired down the hallway. We all jumped out of the window."
The shooter attacked more than one classroom at Norris Hall, according to police and the death total there makes it the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.
"It was kind of scary," said Matt Waldron. "These two kids I guess had panicked and jumped out of the top-story window and the one kid broke his ankle and the other girl was not in good shape just lying on the ground."
Laura Lisbeth, a 19-year-old sophomore, told CNN.com on Monday evening that while she was at Holtzman Alumni Center she saw one of her friends who had been shot in the arm.
Lisbeth said she was shaken by the day's events.
"I'm terrified," she said. "It's gonna be so hard to walk back into class and trust that nothing bad will happen."
Madison Van Duyne said she and her classmates in a media writing class were on "lockdown" in their classroom. They were huddled in the middle of the classroom, writing stories about the shootings and posting them online.
Two hours between incidents
Two people were killed in a separate incident at a dormitory on the campus about two hours earlier, around 7:15 a.m. University police Chief Wendell Flinchum said police were still investigating whether the two incidents are related.
At a news conference Monday afternoon, Flinchum did not rule out a separate shooter for the dormitory incident. (Watch the police chief explain where bodies were found )
One dormitory victim identified
Courtney Dalton, an 18-year-old student who worked at West End Dining Hall, said her friend Ryan Clark was one of the two dormitory victims.
She said Clark, a resident assistant at West Johnston Ambler Hall, had once worked at the cafeteria serving pizza.
"He was a happy person; this is really sad," she said, sobbing.
"All I can do is pray for his family now," she told CNN.com.
'Person of interest'
At the time of the later shootings at Norris Hall, police were investigating a "person of interest" in the dormitory shootings, Flinchum said. But the man -- a non-student who knew one of the victims -- had not been arrested, and it is unclear if he has any link to the other gunman, he said.
Flinchum said at a Monday night news conference that they had a preliminary identification of the shooter at Norris Hall but were not releasing it.
A law enforcement source close to the investigation told CNN a 22-caliber handgun and a 9 mm handgun were recovered at the scene.
University President Charles Steger told reporters Monday night that police found the front doors of Norris chained shut and that by the time they got to the second floor, the gunfire stopped. (Watch gunfire on the campus )
Officials thought first incident was isolated
Asked why the campus, which has more than 26,000 students, was not shut down after the first shooting, Flinchum responded that police determined "it was an isolated event to that building and the decision was made not to cancel classes at that time." (Officials thought shooter had fled)
Sharon Honaker with Carilion New River Medical Center in Christiansburg said one of the four gunshot victims being treated there was in critical condition.
Scott Hill, a spokesman for Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg, said 17 wounded students were taken there.
West Ambler Johnston Hall is a dormitory that houses 895 students and is located near the drill field and stadium. (Campus map)
Amie Steele, editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, said one of her reporters at the dormitory where the first shootings occured reported "mass chaos."
The reporter said there were "lots of students running around, going crazy, and the police officers were trying to settle everyone down and keep everything under control," according to Steele. (Watch police, ambulances hustle to the scene )
The university is updating students through e-mails, and an Internet webcam is broadcasting live pictures of the campus.
Last August, the first day of class was cut short by a manhunt for an escaped prisoner accused of killing a Blacksburg hospital security guard and a sheriff's deputy.
After Monday's shootings, students were instructed to stay indoors and away from windows, according to a university statement. (Watch a student describe living through a "college Columbine" )
The university has scheduled a convocation for 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. Classes also have been canceled Tuesday. In Washington, the House and Senate observed moments of silence for the victims and President Bush said the nation was "shocked and saddened" by news of the tragedy.
"Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones," he said. "We hold the victims in our hearts, we lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today."
Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting occurred in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.
The deadliest school shootings came in 1966 and 1999. In the former, Charles Joseph Whitman, a 25-year-old ex-Marine, killed 13 people on the University of Texas campus. He was killed by police.
In 1999, 17-year-old Dylan Klebold and 18-year-old Eric Harris -- armed with guns and pipe bombs -- killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
CNN's Ashley Fantz and Jeanne Meserve contributed to this report.

Al-Sadr spokesman: ministers to leave Iraq government

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr will announce Monday the departure of his movement's six ministers from Iraq's government to press demands for the U.S. to leave Iraq, the bloc's spokesman Saleh al-Ageili told CNN.
The move makes good on a threat issued last week after Iraq's prime minister rejected a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops, said al-Ageili.
Al-Sadr's stake in the government controls the ministries of Health, Agriculture, Province Affairs, Transportation, Tourism and Civil Society Organizations.
The withdrawal will not affect Sadr's 30 members of parliament, .
The powerful political movement boycotted Iraq's government for two months after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met with President Bush in November.
The movement rejoined the government in January after Iraqi parliament members said they would consider the group's demands, which include a timetable for U.S.-led coalition troop withdrawal and a United Nations assurance that troop deployment would not be extended.
Al-Sadr, widely popular in Iraq's Shiite heartland, opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq and, during the war, his Mehdi Army militia has fiercely fought coalition and Iraqi forces.
Many opponents of the occupation have demanded a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, an issue heavily debated in the United States.
Al-Sadr's faction, which was instrumental in getting al-Maliki the prime minister's position last year, is part of the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, the political bloc that holds sway in Iraq. Speaking on Tuesday in Japan, al-Maliki said "achievements and victories" on the ground -- not timetables -- should determine the "departure of international forces" from his war-torn country.
"We are progressing on the security issue day by day because we are having security responsibility handed over to us continuously," al-Maliki said. "We see no need for a withdrawal timetable because we are working as fast as we can."
Reacting to al-Maliki's comments, al-Sadr's political committee issued a statement Wednesday warning its cabinet ministers might quit as a result.
"This decision has been taken because Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not respect the will of the Iraqi people who went on protest on April 9th demanding ... occupation forces to withdraw from Iraq," al-Ageili said.
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report

Gates: Army tours extended by three months

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Tours of duty for members of the U.S. Army will be extended from 12 months to 15 months effective immediately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday.

"What we're trying to do here is provide some long-term predictability to our soldiers and their families," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.

In exchange for the extension, Gates said the service will be able to give all units a year at home between deployments.

He denied the order was a sign that the Army has passed its breaking point under the stresses of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the service has met or passed its recruiting and retention goals.

But he added that the military has been "stretched" by the conflicts.

And he blasted Tuesday's leak of that proposal to the media, saying the Defense Department hoped to give the troops 48 hours' advance notice of the decision.

The order covers the active-duty Army, which provides most of the estimated 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. National Guard and reserve troops would continue to spend a year in the war zone, Gates said.

About 15,000 more troops are expected to be deployed to Iraq in coming months to support the efforts to pacify Baghdad and other provinces.

The Marines, whose members serve seven months deployed, are unaffected by Wednesday's order, said Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Troops now held beyond 12 months are paid an additional $1,000 a month. That policy will continue, Gates said.

Also, the Army has struggled to entice soldiers and Marines not to leave the service. The campaign to retain soldiers has reached $1 billion, with bonuses soaring nearly sixfold since 2003. (Read full story)

Army: Money crunch ahead
Last week, the Army warned program managers to prepare for a possible money crunch if President Bush vetoes an emergency war spending bill that calls for the eventual withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.

But analysts say Pentagon staff will be the first to face cuts. In a memo sent Monday, the Army Budget Office warned that a resolution to the standoff between Bush and Congress over the bill "is doubtful before the end of April."

It said managers needed to plan to stretch current funds into June, with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan exempt from the restrictions. (Read full story)

Democrats used the announcement to again call for changes to the president's war strategy.

"The Bush administration has failed to create a plan to fully equip and train our troops, bring them home safely and soon, and provide our veterans with the quality care they deserve," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said. "Extending the tours of all active-duty Army personnel is an unacceptable price for our troops and their families to pay."

In her statement, Pelosi encouraged Bush "to sit down with us to find a solution to bring this war to an end."

4 bombers, officer die in Casablanca terrorist attacks

CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) -- Three suspected terrorists blew themselves up as police were closing in Tuesday, and another suspect was shot dead by police while he was preparing to detonate his explosives, authorities said.
A police officer was killed and another was injured. A young child also was injured, officials said.
The explosions in Casablanca, weeks after the bombing of an Internet cafe in the city, promised to further rattle the North African kingdom whose first high-profile brush with Islamic terrorism came in five suicide bombings in the city in May 2003.
Moroccan authorities responded to the 2003 attacks, which left 45 people dead, with the arrest of thousands of alleged Islamic militants -- some accused of working with al Qaeda to plot strikes in Morocco and abroad. At least two of those killed Tuesday were suspected of links to those attacks.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for September. The opposition Justice and Development Party, an Islamic group, is expected to win the most votes.
Tuesday's violence started when police, acting on a tip, surrounded a four-story apartment building in the working-class Hay Farah neighborhood of Casablanca where the suspected terrorists were holed up, officials said.
The suspects were thought to have links to last month's cyber cafe bombing.
One of the bombers who killed himself, Ayyoub Raydi, was the brother of the cafe bomber, Abdelfettah Raydi, an Interior Ministry official said. The official asked that he not be named, citing ministry policy.
After police surrounded the building before dawn Tuesday, one of the suspects fled to the roof, where he blew himself up, said a police official on the scene who refused to give his name, saying he was not authorized to do so. Morocco's official MAP news agency identified that bomber as Mohamed Rachidi.
A second man appeared to be on the verge of also detonating explosives, fumbling with his clothes, when a police sniper shot him, officials said. The suspect later died of his wounds. He was identified by police as Mohamed Mentala. Mentala was carrying 4 kilograms (nearly 9 pounds) of explosives, the Interior Ministry official said.
Mentala and Rachidi had been sought by police for alleged involvement in the 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca, the Interior Ministry official said. MAP said Rachidi, 37, was part of a terrorist cell involved in the killing of a Casablanca police official in 2003.
Ayyoub Raydi blew himself up in the afternoon as police were searching the neighborhood for him, officials said. A bloody pair of legs were seen lying in the middle of a road after that explosion. Police covered up the legs, shorn off at the knees, with pieces of cardboard. Broken glass and charred debris littered the street.
A police officer was killed and another seriously injured in that blast, the Interior Ministry official said. A 7-year-old boy was hospitalized with light injuries, the official said.
Police cordoned off the area, erecting metal barriers to keep thousands of onlookers back.
In the evening, a fourth person detonated his explosives in the middle of a boulevard, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The MAP news agency said the blast injured five people. It gave no details.
"We all thought that the guy had gone the other way -- and then Kablam! -- there was this explosion behind us," said a shopkeeper who gave his name only as Saad. "This is horrible. There's no trust here anymore, because they [the bombers] can get so close to you."
Investigations of the March 11 cafe bombing led police to a wider suspected plot to attack the port in Casablanca, which is Morocco's largest city, as well as police stations and tourist sites in Morocco.
In that blast, bomber Abdelfettah Raydi detonated his charge when the cyber cafe's owner caught him surfing jihadist Web sites. He was killed, and four others were injured.
Authorities say the subsequent investigation uncovered a larger plot that involved at least 30 people. The group had amassed dozens of kilograms of homemade explosives in a Casablanca apartment.
Police have so far arrested 31 suspects, who have been questioned by judges in preliminary court hearings. Raydi and many other suspects were among some 2,000 arrested after the 2003 bombings, but were later released from prison under a royal pardon.
Moroccan authorities have said they do not believe Raydi's group had links to international terrorist networks.
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