Hijacker Atta's Manifesto: Prayers And Checklist.(A)

Byline: From IBD News Services

Mohamed Atta, one of the suspected hijackers in the Sept. 11 assaults on the World Trade Center, left behind a handwritten document that included Islamic prayers and instructions for a last night of life, The Washington Post reported Friday.

The five-page document, written in Arabic, also contained practical reminders to bring "knives, your will, IDs, your passport" and to "make sure nobody is following you," the newspaper said.

U.S. officials have said Atta, a 33-year-old Egyptian, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the World Trade Center's north tower. Nearly 6,500 people are dead or missing in the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon and the crash of a fourth hijacked jet in Pennsylvania.

The Post called the document, found in a piece of Atta's luggage that did not make it onto his flight, a cross between a chilling spiritual exhortation and a mission checklist.

It urged the hijackers to crave death and be optimistic.

"Everybody hates death, fears death," according to a translation of the document obtained by the Post. "But only those, the believers who know the life after death and the reward after death, would be the ones who will be seeking death."