Six Muslim men  convicted of plotting to attack right-wing demonstrators using knives, machetes, and a homemade bomb were reacting to violence and intimidation, a lawyer for the jihadists told a London court on Friday.

 

Five of the six men traveled from Birmingham to Dewsbury on June 30, 2012, with their hidden weapons arsenal,  planning to attack a protest rally conducted by the English Defence League (EDL), an anti-Muslim group.

 

They carried printouts of a document addressed to Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth declaring their intent to take revenge on the “enemies of Allah” — the “English Drunkards League,” The Guardian reported.

 

“We love death more than you love life,” it read. “What we did today is a direct retaliation [of] your insulting of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) & also in retaliation of [sic] your crusade against Islam/Muslims on a global scale. It is of greatest honour for us to do what we did.”

 

The plot was abandoned only because the would-be killers arrived after the EDL demonstration was finished. Police learned of the planned attack by chance, after a routine traffic stop led them to the jihadists’ weapons cache, according to The Guardian. 

 

Prosecutors said the plot would have led “to a tit for tat spiral of violence and terror that would have enveloped the nation.”

The six men, they added, planned “to execute a terrible vengeance on the English Defence League for what they perceive to be the EDL’s recent blasphemous words and actions against the Prophet Mohammed and Islam.”