BRITAIN: The shoe bomber Richard Reid said he made "no apologies" for his attempts to blow up a passenger jet, it emerged yesterday.
And he warned terror attacks on the West would not stop until the "Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims".
The revelations came in a letter sent by the British-born extremist to a Scottish legal magazine from his prison in America.
In the letter to The Firm magazine, the failed suicide bomber is unrepentant about his activities and those of his associates.
Reid launches an attack on US foreign policy in areas such as Iraq, Israel, Palestine and Afghanistan, as well as hitting out at western governments which "glorify" and "promote" immorality in the name of freedom.
The letter predates the recent bomb blasts in London, having been received by the magazine's US-based correspondent Noel Young at the end of 2002 - after he requested an interview with the shoe bomber.
Reid is now in a US prison after he failed in his bid to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. He was overpowered by passengers and crew when he attempted to light a fuse to trigger explosives packed into his shoes.
The magazine said the letter gave a "dark and disturbing insight" into the mind of a potential suicide bomber. Editor Richard Draycott said he was in no doubt the letter was genuine because it had come through official prison channels.
In the letter, Reid, a convert to Islam, sets out why he believes the British system has failed him, and he sends a warning to those who support the US administration's activities in the Islamic world.
He wrote: "I make no apologies for my activities nor those of my associates and I state that if people want the attacks on the West to stop, then they should start looking to their own selves because as far as we're concerned whoever supports the American government's activities in the Muslim world or helps them in that by any means is equally responsible for those acts."
In the letter, Reid stated that in any western city the effects of moral decline are obvious compared with the ways of Islam, which forbids the promotion of "vices", such as homosexuality and adultery.
The Firm's editor Mr Draycott said Reid's letter gave an important insight into how would-be suicide bombers think: "While most people consider all those that have died in terrorist attacks, such as 9/11 and in the London Underground, to be innocent victims, Reid and other extremists consider their victims to be anything but innocent."