A court has sentenced four Islamic militants for a failed plot to attack US targets in Germany. The attacks were planned to punish Germany for its role in Afghanistan.

The higher regional court in Duesseldorf sentenced the four to up to 12 years in jail in the country's biggest terror trial in decades.

The two Germans converts, Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider, got 12 years each. Turkish national Adem Yilmaz was sentenced to 11 years, while German-Turkish citizen Attila Selek will go to jail for five years.

The four defendants in the so-called 'Sauerland' cell had planned a "mass murder unrivaled in Germany," said federal prosecutor Volker Brinkmann in his closing argument. "The plot still sends chills down one's spine. They appointed themselves masters over life and death."

Defense attorneys, however, called it "the largest insufficient attempted terrorist attack." They had been asking for sentences below 10 years.

The defendants, self-confessed Islamic militants, admitted to planning large-scale bomb attacks for the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) against discos and bars frequented by Americans, airports and US military facilities in Germany.

The attacks had been planned for October 2007, during a parliament vote to extend German participation in the NATO force in Afghanistan.

Police caught the first three suspects, Daniel Schneider, Fritz Gelowicz and Adem Yilmaz, in September 2007 as they were preparing 410 kilograms of explosives – 100 times the amount used in the 2005 London bombings, prosectors said. The fourth defendant, Atilla Selek, was later captured in Turkey.

Agencies via Deutsche Welle