Editing Mohamed Atta (section)

== Assessment and motivation ==
There are multiple, conflicting explanations for Atta's behavior and motivation. [[Political psychologist]] [[Jerrold Post]] has suggested that Atta and his fellow hijackers were just following orders from [[al-Qaeda]] leadership, "and whatever their destructive, charismatic leader [[Osama bin Laden]] said was the right thing to do for the sake of the cause was what they would do."<ref>Weaver, Carolyn. (6 October 2004). [http://www.militaryinfo.com/news_story.cfm?textnewsid=2149 “New video shows 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah at Al-Qaida meeting.”] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110929172646/http://www.militaryinfo.com/news_story.cfm?textnewsid=2149 |date=29 September 2011}} Voice of America News.</ref> American political scientist [[Robert Pape]] asserts that Atta was motivated by his commitment to the political cause, that he was psychologically normal, and that he was "not readily characterized as depressed, not unable to enjoy life, not detached from friends and society."{{Sfn|Pape|2005|p=220}} By contrast, criminal justice professor, Adam Lankford, has found evidence that indicated Atta was [[suicidal]], and that his struggles with [[social isolation]], [[Depression (mood)|depression]], guilt, shame, hopelessness, and rage were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide and [[murder-suicide]]. By this view, Atta's political and religious beliefs affected the method of his suicide and his choice of target, but they were not the underlying causes of his behavior.{{Sfn|Lankford|2013}}{{Page needed|date=September 2023}}

On 1 October 2006, ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' released a video it had obtained "through a previously tested channel", purporting to show Mohamed Atta and [[Ziad Jarrah]] recording a martyrdom message at a training camp in [[Afghanistan]].<ref>{{cite news |date=1 October 2006 |title=Video of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta posted by British news site |work=USA Today |url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-10-01-sept11-video_x.htm |url-status=live |access-date=24 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202160747/http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-10-01-sept11-video_x.htm |archive-date=2 December 2008}}</ref><ref name="laughing2">{{cite news |last=Fouda |first=Yosri |date=1 October 2006 |title=The laughing 9/11 bombers |work=The Sunday Times |location=London |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article656683.ece |url-status=dead |access-date=4 September 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524015512/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article656683.ece |archive-date=24 May 2011}}</ref><ref name="Yosri" /> The video, bearing the date of 18 January 2000, is of good resolution but contains no sound track. [[lip reading|Lip readers]] have failed to decipher it. Atta and Jarrah appear in high spirits, laughing and smiling in front of the camera. They had never been pictured together before.<ref>{{Citation |last=unknown |title=Mohamad Atta and Zyad Jarrah Willing ( 11/9 ) |date=2007 |url=http://archive.org/details/atta-zyad-willing |access-date=29 August 2023}}</ref> Unidentified sources from both al-Qaeda and the United States confirmed the video's authenticity. A separate section of the video shows Osama bin Laden addressing his followers at a complex near [[Kandahar]]. [[Ramzi bin al-Shibh]] is also identified in the video. According to ''The Sunday Times'', "American and German investigators have struggled to find evidence of Atta's whereabouts in January 2000 after he disappeared from Hamburg. The hour-long tape places him in Afghanistan at a decisive moment in the development of the conspiracy when he was given operational command. Months later both he and Jarrah enrolled at flying schools in America."<ref name="laughing2"/><ref>{{cite news |author=Fouda, Yosri |date=1 October 2006 |title=Chilling Message of the 9/11 Pilots |work=The Sunday Times |location=London |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article656440.ece |url-status=dead |access-date=16 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706181828/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article656440.ece |archive-date=6 July 2008}}</ref>