Shooter wounds five soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia, now in custody

A shooter wounded five soldiers at Fort Stewart before being apprehended by law enforcement. Photo / Getty Images

A shooter opened fire at a US military base in the southern state of Georgia, wounding five soldiers before being apprehended.

Fort Stewart, a large army base that is home to thousands of soldiers and families, went into lockdown as emergency teams raced to respond to the “active shooter” situation.

A statement on the base’s official Facebook page later said the shooter was in custody, without providing details about their identity or potential motive.

“All Soldiers were treated on-site and moved to Winn Army Community Hospital for further treatment,” the base said of those wounded.

“The incident remains under investigation and no additional information will be released until the investigation is complete.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump had been briefed, while US Attorney General Pam Bondi said federal law enforcement were “coordinating to provide support”.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was “monitoring the situation”.

Though relatively rare, shootings – including some apparent terror-related attacks – periodically target military facilities in the United States, a country that is plagued by an epidemic of gun violence.

In 2019, a US sailor fatally shot two people and wounded a third at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii, while a Saudi military student shot dead three people at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida the same year.

In July 2015, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez attacked two military installations in Tennessee, killing four Marines and a sailor. The FBI concluded the violence was inspired by a “foreign terrorist group”.

Two years earlier, Aaron Alexis killed 12 people and wounded eight at the Washington Navy Yard in the US capital, before being shot dead by officers.

And four years before that a US Army psychiatrist killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood in Texas.

– Agence France-Presse