Two German converts to Islam were jailed Thursday for 12 years each for heading a home-grown Islamist conspiracy to blow up US army bases and other targets on German soil, DPA reported.
Police, who had been tapping their phones, arrested them and two other plotters in 2007 and seized nearly a ton of chemicals to make bombs before they could act. The four confessed their allegiance to the Islamic Jihad Union during a 10-month trial in Dusseldorf.
Converts Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider were each jailed for 12 years, avoiding the maximum 15-year term because of their confessions. The third man arrested with them in a quiet village in the Sauerland hills, Adem Yilmaz, was given 11 years.
They were convicted of membership in a terrorist group and of conspiracy to commit multiple murders.
A helper, Atilla Selek, was jailed for five years for supporting a terrorist group.
The main trio were detained after stockpiling more than 700 litres of hydrogen peroxide to make car-bombs.
They discussed attacking supermarkets on US airbases, German nightclubs and airports with the aim of forcing Germany to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
Their organization, the IJU, has bases in the lawless Waziristan region of Pakistan and is allied with al-Qaeda, they told the state superior court during the trial.