Unrepentant, and convinced that Muslims across the world are the victims of American oppression, the mind of Richard Reid, the attempted shoe bomber from South London, was shown today in a letter published in a Scottish legal magazine.

The letter, written by Reid from his prison cell in America on October 24, 2002, and published by The Firm magazine today, was sent to the magazine's US correspondent instead of an interview.

In the letter, Reid, now 31, gave a rambling but cogent reply to a note sent to him by Noel Young, The Firm's journalist, who offered Reid the chance to "explain to people in Britain why you feel the system there let you down, why you chose to live abroad and why you took the actions you took."

Reid, who is serving a life sentence in the federal "supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado, for his attempt to destroy a passenger aircraft on December 22 2001 by detonating a bomb in his shoes, opens the letter praising Allah before setting out the motives behind his attempt to kill more than 200 people.

"You asked me where do I feel that the British system failed me," wrote Reid, whose letter was literate but only slightly punctuated.

"In reality my actions did not come from some personal grievance but rather because of my belief that the Western countries with America at their head are both openly and secretly fighting the religion of Allah (Islam)."

Reid described his anger at what he perceived as American oppression against Muslims across the world - in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and Sudan - before launching an attack on the immorality and "self-fulfilment" of Western society which he understood as a threat to Islam.

"All this is in the name of freedom and democracy," wrote Reid of the American foreign policy. "But the reality is that the freedom that they’re talking about is nothing other than forcing the Muslims to accept laws that legalise homosexuality, fornication, adultery etc."

"In any western city you can see the ill effect that allowing the promotion of self fulfillment has had. Teenage girls constantly find themselves responsible of bringing up children whose fathers take little or no responsibility for them," the letter said.

Reid defended the tactics of terrorism as a means to defend Islam against American "oppressive repressive tyrants".

"As for those who wish to condemn our means of warfare, then we did not drop a nuclear bomb on Japan nor do we fund the torture of our opponents nor did we place sanctions on a people for the crimes of a tyrant whom we placed in power thus leading to the deaths of millions of children as America has done in Iraq," he wrote.

Reid, who wrote the letter before the war began in Iraq, showed no remorse for his attempted attack, and said it was the responsibility of "the West" to curb its aggression against Muslims. Reid also stressed that civilians were as guilty as their governments for the crimes committed against Islam.

"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 ownselves," wrote Reid, who was a petty criminal before he turned to extremist Islam.

"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 and thus such people have as one but their own selves to blame for the attacks on American interests and such attacks will not be stopped unless the Americans stop their oppression of the Muslims."

Richard Draycott, the editor of The Firm, explained today that the magazine decided to publish the letter as a way of showing the workings of an extremist's mind.

"Obviously what with all that's been going on, it's quite timely," he told Times Online. "It obviously gives a bit of an insight into the way that extremists think."

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found