Two Muslim extremists wanted to kills thousands of innocent people in a massive explosion New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, a court heard.

The pair wanted to avenge US oppression of Muslims by blowing up jet fuel tanks, Assistant US Attorney Zainab Ahmad said.

Their vision prompted them to code name the plot "The Shining Light," he told the Brooklyn court.

Russell Defreitas, 66, a former JFK cargo handler, and Abdul Kadir, 58, once an MP in Guyana, were arrested in 2007 after an informant infiltrated the plot and made a series of secret recordings.

Prosecutors say Defreitas carried out reconnaissance at the airport, sought the help of a militant Muslim group in Trinidad along with Kadir and dreamt of delivering a devastating economic blow to the United States.

Defreitas, a naturalised US citizen from Guyana, "is a classic homegrown extremist," Mr Ahmad said.

Defence lawyers have denied their clients are militants and claim they were framed by a informant.

The government's evidence included tapes of Defreitas that showed he was determined to avenge the mistreatment of Muslims in the United States and abroad with an attack that would "dwarf 9/11," Mr Ahmad said.

He also told the informant that his US citizenship gave him cover, the prosecutor added.

"The don't expect nobody in this country to do something like this," she quoted him as saying. "They have their eyes on foreigners, not me."

As part of the plot, Defreitas and the informant travelled to Guyana to meet Kadir and show him homemade surveillance videotapes of the airport's fuel depots, the prosecutor said.

The plotters also discussed contacting Adnam Shukrijumah, an al Qaida operative and explosives expert who was believed to be hiding in the Caribbean at the time, she added.

Shukrijumah, an FBI-most wanted terrorist, was charged in federal court in Brooklyn this month accused of being involved in a failed plot to attack the New York subway system with suicide bombers.