Mohamed Atta’s Personality

On Tuesday, September 11, American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The event was horrible. Investigation of the phenomenon of suicide bombers was chilling because the perpetrators turn out to be “ordinary people that form a human arsenal of living bombs secretly awaiting their turn.” (Quoted from the 1997 documentary film, Suicide Bombers: Secrets of the Shaheed, written and directed by Dan Setton) To the best of our knowledge, at the controls was 33-year-old Mohamed Atta, the apparent ringleader of the meticulously planned al-Qaeda terror attack on New York City and Washington, D.C. The profile of Atta and several of the other 19 operatives on the four hijacked flights that day defied the profile of suicide bombers that terrorism experts had constructed on the basis of data compiled from suicide bombings over the preceding two decades. Most notably, the September 11 hijackers tended to be older and more integrated in society than the typical alienated, socially, and economically marginalized suicide bomber in his early 20s that had brought terror to Sri Lanka, Chechnya, and the Middle East. Embedded in this larger question of changing demographics is the question of the psychology of these self-proclaimed martyrs. For insight into the mind of the new generation of suicide bombers, a personality study of the linchpin Mohamed Atta is a good place to start.

Information concerning Mohamed Atta was collected from media reports and synthesized into a personality profile using the model cited below. Atta’s primary personality pattern was found to be conscientious and compulsive, modulated by a strong aloof orientation and secondarily, of aggrieved/self-denying patterns. His profile reveals the presence of subsidiary distrusting/suspicious features. In my analysis, the ascetic, aloof, highly obsessive Atta proved closely matched a “puritanical compulsive” syndrome. Such puritanical compulsives are “austere, self-righteous, [and] highly controlled.” Their “intense anger and resentment … is given sanction, at least as they see it, by virtue of their being on the side of righteousness and morality.” (Theodore Millon, Disorders of Personality: DSM‑IV and Beyond, 1996, p. 520)

The world of puritanical compulsives is dichotomized into good and evil, saints and sinners—and they arrogate for themselves the role of savior. They seek out common enemies in their relentless pursuit of mission. Puritanical compulsives are prone to vent their hostility through “sadistic displacements.” Their “puritanical’s wrath becomes the vengeful sword of righteousness, descended from heaven to lay waste to sin and iniquity.” Of greater concern, puritanicals instinctively seek ever-greater degrees of fundamentalism, “because literalism makes it much easier to find someone who deserves not only to be punished but to be punished absolutely.” (Theodore Millon and Roger D. Davis, Personality Disorders in Modern Life, 2000, p. 178)

From this perspective, the major implication of the study is that political socialization experiences that produce a compulsive character structure—one manifestation of which is the classic authoritarian personality—may predispose a person to suicidal acts of terror (“martyrdom”) when molded by a political culture that promotes paranoid fanaticism and buttresses religious values

Page 185

that engender an expectation of spiritual expiation as eternal reward for wielding the secular sword of righteousness.

The puritanical compulsive character complex is embedded in the highly conscientious personality’s deep ambivalence between obedience and defiance, and characterized by the dual regulatory mechanisms of reaction formation against forbidden thoughts and sadistic displacement of hostile impulses. Developmentally, in all likelihood, Atta’s righteousness was rooted in a caring but controlling, virtuous but moralistic upbringing. Such child-rearing practices can breed adults who “displace anger and insecurity by seeking out some position of power that allows them to become a socially sanctioned superego for others,” whose “swift judgment … conceals a sadistic and self-righteous joy” cloaked in the mantle of social virtue. (Personality Disorders, p. 184)

The key to unraveling Mohamed Atta’s mindset is to conduct a comprehensive psychological autopsy of his obsessive-compulsive characteristics. As Peter Finn observed in the Washington Post, in the details of Atta’s life “are clues, tentative to be sure, about the making of a suicidal fanatic—a devout, highly intelligent and diligent student who lived and moved easily within Western society while secretly hating it.” (“A Fanatic’s Quiet Path to Terror,” Sept. 22, 2001, p. A1)

Expressive behavior refers to how the individual typically appears to others and knowingly or unknowingly reveals himself. Conscientious individuals like Atta have a strong sense of duty. They do their best to uphold convention, follow regulations closely, and are typically responsible, reliable, proper, prudent, self-disciplined, well organized, and restrained. They are meticulous in fulfilling obligations. Reporting from Hamburg, Germany, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, the Observer’s John Hooper referred to “the austerely dutiful life” of Atta. Hooper relates how, in June 1997 Atta returned his final paycheck when he was laid off by the Plankontor planning consultancy in Hamburg where he worked part-time while studying in the 1990s. According to a Plankontor partner, Atta said that he had been overpaid and therefore “hadn’t earned” the money and “didn’t want any more.” Just days before the horror of September 11, Brad Warrick, of Warrick’s Rent-a-Car in Pompano Beach, Florida, said that Atta called him to say the car’s oil light was on. When he returned it on 9 September, Atta reminded him about the light. (“The Shy, Caring, Deadly Fanatic,” Sept. 23, 2001) More compulsive variants of this pattern—as evidently Atta was—are rigid. They strike others as moralistic and condescending. John Cloud, writing in TIME magazine, reports that a fellow student and friend of Atta’s in Hamburg “liked Atta but sensed a rigidity in his friend” who struck him as “a guy searching for justice.” Another declared, “He spoke out impulsively against injustice. He was so sensitive that he could become emotional if an insect was killed.” (“Atta’s Odyssey,” Oct. 8, 2001, pp. 64-67)

Interpersonal conduct includes a person’s typical style of relating to others. Conscientious individuals are extraordinarily courteous and polite. They prefer formal, correct personal relationships and are loyal to their causes and superiors. More compulsive variants tend to be uncompromising, justifying aggressive intent by recourse to rules, authorities, or imperatives higher than themselves. Jim Yardley of The New York Times reports that Atta was “polite, distant and neatly dressed” but “tolerated no compromise. He ate no pork and scraped the frosting off cakes, in case it contained lard. He threatened to leave the university unless he was given a room for a prayer group.” (“A Portrait of the Terrorist: From Shy Child to Single-Minded Killer,” Oct. 10, 2001, p. B9)

Cognitive style signifies a person’s characteristic manner of focusing and allocating attention, encoding and processing information, organizing thoughts, and communicating thoughts and ideas. Conscientious individuals are systematic, methodical, and attentive to detail. In his The New York Times profile, Yardley reports that Atta had “a precise and disciplined temperament,” impressing his co-workers at Plankontor “with his diligence and the careful elegance of his drafting.” More compulsive variants are cognitively constricted. Their thinking may be constrained by stubborn adherence to personally formulated schemas.

Mood/temperament captures a person’s typical manner of displaying emotion and the intensity and frequency with which he expresses it. The characteristic mood and temperament of conscientious individuals is restrained; they are serious-minded, logical, and they rarely display strong emotions. Cloud reports that Atta’s emotions “were steady.” Both Finn and Yardley describe Atta’s temperament as “serious.” Finn adds that upon Atta’s return to Hamburg after an extended absence in 1999, during which he is suspected to have had contact with the al-Qaeda network and perhaps

Page 186

Osama bin Laden himself, Atta “seemed more serious and aloof to those who had known him before.” Yardley, too, quotes his sources as recalling that Atta was “more serious,” not smiling as much, and becoming “more brooding, more troubled.” More compulsive variants are solemn, emotionally controlled, grim and cheerless, keeping a tight rein on emotions, though they may occasionally exhibit abrupt, explosive outbursts of anger. Finn quotes an acquaintance of Atta as saying, “‘He was a very tight person…. I cannot remember him smiling.’“

Self‑image denotes a person’s perception of self-as-object or the manner in which people overtly describe themselves. Conscientious individuals are highly reliable. Correspondingly, they view themselves as dependable, disciplined, responsible, industrious, efficient, and trustworthy. Indeed, they are sometimes conscientious to a fault, perceiving themselves as scrupulous and meticulous in fulfilling obligations, despite often being viewed by others as high-minded, perfectionistic, and fastidious. Yardley writes that Atta’s acquaintances from Hamburg-Harburg Technical University felt that “he was meticulous, disciplined and highly intelligent.” More compulsive variants view themselves as righteous. They overvalue aspects of themselves that exhibit virtue, moral rectitude, discipline, and perfection. Yardley asserts, “The awful efficiency of the attack demanded a leader with a precise and disciplined temperament, and Mr. Atta apparently filled that role.”

Regulatory mechanisms involves a person’s characteristic means of self-protection, need gratification, and conflict resolution. Compulsive individuals prototypically employ reaction formation but tend to rely on a broader range of ego-defense mechanisms than other personalities, including displacement, identification, sublimation, isolation, and undoing. These dynamics provide a context for the five-page handwritten document left behind by Atta, the apparent author, who reminded the hijackers to “be obedient … because you will be facing situations that are the ultimate and that would not be done except with full obedience.” In a manifest act of undoing, Atta’s concurrently malevolent and pious screed exhorts the hijackers to sharpen their knives and to “strike above the necks and strike from everywhere,” while providing spiritual guidance on purifying one’s mental and physical state. Furthermore, the missive offers a chilling glimpse of sadistic hostility displaced onto defenseless members of a scorned out-group while—in a final act of reaction formation—its matter-of-fact, rational tone cloaks its fundamentally murderous intent in a mantle of divine redemption.

The inner imprints (object representations) left by a person’s significant early experiences with others—memories, attitudes, and affects—are a vital part of our character formation. The characteristic internalized early imprints of compulsive individuals are concealment: Only those that are socially acceptable are permitted into conscious awareness. Thus, personal difficulties and social conflicts anchored to past experiences are defensively denied and maintained under the most stringent of controls. These individuals devalue self-exploration, claiming that introspection is anathema to rational thinking and self-control. Had Atta’s insight into his deeper motives been less constrained by maladaptive personality organization, his vision might have been less clouded by the residue of early imprints left by, in the words of Yardley, “a pampering mother and an ambitious father”—a disciplinarian taskmaster who grumbled “that his wife spoiled their bright, if timid, son, who continued to sit on her lap until enrolling at Cairo University.” A high school classmate recalled that the young Mohamed “focused solely on becoming an engineer—and following his father’s bidding.” According to this youth acquaintance, “I never saw him playing…. We did not like him very much, and I think he wanted to play with the rest of the boys.… I think his father, wanted him to always perform in school in an excellent way.” Cloud also cites childhood friends as describing Atta’s father as “quite strict.” After Mohamed graduated from the University of Cairo in 1990, his father “convinced him that only an advanced degree from abroad would allow him to prosper in Egypt.” Once again, Atta followed his father’s bidding, enrolling in Hamburg-Harburg Technical University.

The ego strength and the functional efficacy of the personality system, the morphologic organization, is compartmentalized in compulsive individuals. They restrain ambivalent and contradictory thoughts and feelings, partitioning their inner world into numerous distinct and segregated constellations. Thus, a poised surface quality may belie an inner turmoil. Because they usually have a history of exposure to demanding, perfectionistic parents, a potent force behind their tightly structured world is their fear of disapproval. As their public facade of conformity and propriety often masks an undercurrent of repressed urges toward

Page 187

self-assertion and defiance, they must guard against “detection,” which they achieve through characteristic control mechanisms such as reaction formation.

Horrendous tragedy, such as that of September 11, is easier to bear when heroes are heroes, victims are victims, and villains are unequivocally evil to the very core of their being. On the face of it, only a sadistic psychopath could possibly have been capable of coordinating the cold-blooded destruction of September 11. Part of the complexity of the post-September 11 world order is that but for his final act of brutality Atta’s character would seem beyond reproach. But clearly, the hermetic partitioning of ambivalent and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and impulses—so characteristic of the psychic architecture of the puritanical compulsive—presents another, more inexorable path to the kind of devastation seen at the World Trade Center. That much is reflected in his very distinct Aggrieved/self-denying traits, indicative of an underlying masochistic orientation.

A portrait of the self-sacrificing personality type depicts them in the following manner. “Knowing that they have given of themselves, they feel comfortable and at peace, secure with their place in the scheme of things.” Of course, “at its best and most noble, this is the selfless, magnanimous personality style of which saints and good citizens are made.” (Oldham and Morris, The New Personality Self-Portrait, 1995, p. 319) A childhood friend of Atta’s remembers, “Mohamed … never offended or bothered anyone…. He was good to the roots.” Another recalls, “He was a little bit pure.” (Both quoted by Cloud.) Finn reports that, upon completing his thesis in Hamburg, Atta offered this dedication, drawn from the Koran: “My prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death belong to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.” The masochistic elements in Atta’s profile provide a partial, personality-based explanatory framework for his willingness to sacrifice his life, as he saw it, as a martyr for his cause while satisfying his ascetic, obsessive spiritual hunger for divine perfection.

Furthermore, Atta’s profile reveals some distrusting, suspicious features. In the normal course of events, such a “vigilant style” may be well suited to “the roles of social critic, watchdog, ombudsman, and crusader in their private or our public domain, ready to spring upon the improprieties—especially the abuses of power—that poison human affairs.” (The New Personality, p. 157)

The picture that emerges is that of a man carrying an enormous grudge against the increasing secularization of Egypt, for which he blamed the West, and America in particular. The puritanical Atta took personal offense and on occasion reacted angrily to the West’s cultural corruption, in his mind, of the Islamic world. He was highly insular, perhaps with intense fears of losing his Islamic identity and power of self-determination. Yardley writes that Atta’s path to destruction “was a quiet and methodical evolution of resentment that somehow—and that now remains the essential imponderable—took a leap to mass-murderous fury.” Noting that Mohamed Atta “came of age in an Egypt torn between growing Western influence and the religious fundamentalism that gathered force in reaction,” he postulates that after Atta arrived in Germany to continue his studies,

his religious faith deepened and his resentments hardened. The focus of his disappointment became the Egyptian government; the target of his blame became the West, and especially America…. His vision of Islam embraced resolute precepts of fate and destiny and purity, and, ultimately, tolerated no compromise.

As a paradigmatic case study, Mohamed Atta proves to be a near-perfect match for the kind of personality traditionally sought out for recruitment by organizations such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad: modest, blends easily into society, and with no criminal record. In the words of Abdul Nasser Issa, a “high-ranking strategic planner” and Hamas bomb maker, “A shaheed [martyr] has to have the motivation to become a martyr, to have faith…. his kind of job requires a strong will and persistence.” (Suicide Bombers) It is difficult to imagine a more suitable candidate for recruitment than the self-sacrificing, devout, strong-willed, and conscientious Atta. The essential difference between Atta and “old-profile” suicide bombers is not in their underlying personality dimensions or character traits. It is a difference only in the surface characteristics of demographics and schooling—qualities dictated by critical role requirements of new, infinitely more complex, global reach terror operations.

In conclusion, the over-control that constitutes the critical childrearing ingredient and socialization process in the formation of compulsive character structures—with the attendant potential for blind obedience to authority—produces a volatile mix when primed with the catalyst of authori-

Page 188

tarian, xenophobic political systems. That much we learned from the Nazis. Without a massive, sustained public diplomacy offensive to stem the proliferation of diabolical enemy images of the West, which serve as a culture for incubating fringe extremist movements in the Islamic world, more September 11s will surely be visited upon the United States.

Page 189