OAK CREEK, Wisconsin (Reuters) – The gunman who killed six people at a
Wisconsin Sikh temple was a U.S. Army veteran, military sources said on
Monday, and a monitor of extremists said he had links to hate groups.

A law enforcement source identified the tall, bald, white gunman as Wade Michael Page, 40.

The gunman shot dead six people
and seriously wounded three, including a police officer, at the Sikh
Temple of Wisconsin on Sunday as worshippers prepared for religious
services. A police officer shot Page dead.

The “name that is out there is accurate,” the source said. Fox News and CNN had previously identified him.

Authorities said they were
treating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism. American Sikhs said
they have often been singled out for harassment, and occasionally
violent attack, since the September 11, 2001, attacks because of their
colorful turbans and beards.

U.S. military sources said Wade
had been discharged from the Army in 1998 for “patterns of misconduct”
and had been cited for being drunk on duty.

Wade had served in the military
for six years but was never posted overseas. He was a psychological
operations specialist and missile repairman who was last stationed at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the sources said.

In June 1998 he was disciplined
for being drunk on duty and had his rank reduced to specialist from
sergeant. He was not eligible to re-enlist.

Wade had been a member of the
racist skinhead band End Apathy, based in Fayetteville, North Carolina,
in 2010, said Heidi Beirich, director of the intelligence project at the
Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

Wade also tried to buy goods from
the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group, in 2000, she said. The SPLC
describes the National Alliance on its website as “perhaps the most
dangerous and best organized neo-Nazi formation in America.”

In a 2010 online interview with End Apathy’s record label Label56,
Wade said he had founded the band in 2005 because “I realized … that if
we could figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways it would be the
start towards moving forward.”

Police were searching an
apartment at a duplex in the Cudahy neighborhood near Milwaukee,
presumed to be the residence of the gunman. Generators and floodlights
were set up along the street and a bomb squad was on the scene.

The names of the victims were not
made public pending notification of relatives, although members said
the president of the congregation and a priest were among the victims.

Oak Creek Police Chief John Richards told CNN the gunman “lived in a
community neighboring ours, we’re doing a 24-hour backcheck, just to get
any idea what he was up to, what he was doing.

“Right now there is no indication that there were any red flags.”

The wounded police officer had
been shot eight or nine times in the face and extremities at close range
with a handgun. None of the wounds were life-threatening, Edwards said.

CNN said Page legally owned the gun that was used in the shooting.

A search of the Lexis-Nexis
online records service showed that Wade had lived at least 20 addresses
in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Colorado, California and Texas.

9MM HANDGUN

Authorities said the gunman had
used a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which was recovered at the scene. They
were trying to track the origin of the weapon.

Wisconsin has some of the most
permissive gun laws in the country. It passed a law in 2011 allowing
citizens to carry a concealed weapon.

Jagjit Singh Kaleka, the brother of the president of the temple, who
was among the six Sikhs killed, said he had no idea what the motive was
for the attack.

The shooting came just over two
weeks after a gunman killed 12 people at a theater in Aurora, Colorado,
where they were watching a screening of new Batman movie “The Dark
Knight Rises.”

The September 11 attacks were
carried out by Muslims linked to the al Qaeda militant group led by
Osama bin Laden. Sikhs are not Muslim but many Americans do not know the
difference, members of the Sikh community said.

There are 500,000 or more Sikhs
in the United States but the community in Wisconsin is small, about
2,500 to 3,000 families, said local Sikhs.

The Sikh faith is the
fifth-largest in the world, with more than 30 million followers. It
includes belief in one God and that the goal of life is to lead an
exemplary existence.

The temple in Oak Creek was founded in October 1997 and has a congregation of 350 to 400 people.