You might be able to establish some sort of link between ruthlessness and "psychopathy". I'd love to hear where schizophrenia enters the picture, though.

While your first link is only a personal blog post, it does present some coherent thought - but even the author states that "terrorists, by and large, do not suffer from psychosis".

There is also the fact that what we think of as psychopathic actions (or stereotypes thereof) are primarily driven by the ego of the perpetrator, as opposed to the alleged ideological motivations of (e.g. islamic) terrorists.

Note that the first article focuses on the common superficialities (their behaviors appears somewhat similar), but says nothing of the cognitive processes at play in practice - the piece is mostly speculation.

By the way, the statements that "the Palestinians have perfected victimhood as a science" (near the end of the article) leads me to take this source with a grain of salt.

The second article is an argument based on a hell of a lot of assumptions (it even admits this), and basically assumes that since the causes of mental illness and terrorism resemble each other they must be connected (or even the same).

My gripe with your initial post is that the assertion is dubious (at best, and not really theoretically supported), and that it:

- Gives a psychologically satisfying explanation as to how "they" can do things like this, that makes it easier for us to see them as something other than us.

- Ends up perpetuating mental health stigma.

- Politicizes psychopathology.

I suggest taking a look at what a professional authority, e.g. APA [0] says about the matter.

[0]: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/11/terrorism.aspx