WILLIAMSPORT - A white nationalist group in 2016 talked about detonating an explosive device at one of its events in Harrisburg to kill protestors.

That is the allegation contained in a legal brief assistant U.S. Attorney George J. Rocktashel filed Friday in U.S. Middle District Court in support of the charges against Justin Daniel Lough, a reputed member of the Aryan Strikeforce from Waynesboro, Va.

The prosecutor was replying to the claim by assistant public defender D. Toni Byrd that the charges against Lough and five co-defendants are based on a crime the government "manufactured." She was referring to the controlled methamphetamine and firearms transactions that are the basis of the charges in the indictment.

"Without the government and its supply of methamphetamine, machine gun parts and interested buyers there would be no crime," she wrote in a motion asking Judge Matthew W. Brann to dismiss the indictment against Lough.

Rocktashel's response was that well before that undercover investigation the FBI received information about illegal activity involving firearms and drugs in Potter County. Through state police and law enforcement sources, the FBI determined strikeforce members regularly traveled to the property of the organization's then president Ronald Pulcher for among other things weapons training, he stated. At one of those gatherings, according to cooperating witnesses, a plan was discussed to conceal a bomb inside the oxygen bottle of a strikeforce member who was terminally ill and willing to blow himself up, the document states.

Rocktashel defended the way evidence was gathered against the six, saying their illegal activities posed a serious risk to public safety. It required the use of investigative techniques, including undercover FBI employees who recorded meetings with Aryan Strikeforce members, he said.

The FBI staged a series of scenarios involving the controlled transfer of crystal methamphetamine and machine gun parts after it was learned strikeforce members were actively engaged in discussions of bomb making and drug and firearms trafficking, Rocktashel said. Transcripts made part of the court record confirm Lough and his confederates eagerly participated in the transfers knowing they were engaged in criminal activity, he said.

READ MORE: Prosecutor: Aryan Strikeforce member wanted all the guns he could get

Meetings in Harrisburg were an integral part of the undercover operation, the transcripts show.

The following is information from them and Rocktashel's court filing: At a March 30, 2017, meeting at the El Rodeo restaurant on Jonestown Road, Lough expressed interest in obtaining an AK-47 rifle and a .380 caliber pistol. He also said he had stolen cars, committed robberies and cooked and distributed methamphetamine while in Arizona with a skinhead group known as the "Hammerskins." They left the restaurant and drove to the 4600 block of Locust Lane where Lough said he wanted as many guns as he could get. Enroute to Hagerstown, Md., with firearms parts following an April 7, 2017, meeting at a Dunkin Donuts in Harrisburg, another of those charged talked about nearly shooting a man.

According to that transcript, Henry Lambert Baird of Brown Mills, N.J., said he had pointed a gun at a white male who hanging around the group, but just as he pulled the trigger the intended victim pushed his away and the bullet missed. Rocktashel's court filing cites the following instances where violent acts were mentioned: In an exchange of messages on Oct. 10, 2016, a man calling himself "Eichmann Halcrow" discussed what to do about a female who had threatened strikeforce members. Pulcher suggested a prospective member hospitalize her as a form of initiation.

Pulcher is serving a state prison sentenced after being arrested that October and charged with growing marijuana and possession of illegal firearms. He is not charged in the federal case.

The other instance was a fight with racial overtones at an Easton bar on Dec. 4, 2016, in which Baird, who succeeded Pulcher as president, and Joshua Michael Steever of Manville, N.J., were involved. Local police reports state that Steever walked past a group of African-American males, made racial slurs, was removed by the bouncer but returned with a knife. Steever was wearing his strikeforce bomber jacket.

The indictment alleges Steever, Baird, Lough, Jacob Mark Robards of Bethlehem, Stephen Davis of Bumpass, Va., and Connor Drew Dikes of Silver Spring, Md., were members of the Aryan Strikeforce and the Eastern Service Unit of Combat 18. Davis was vice president and Dykes sergeant of arms when they arrested last April. Steever is identified at the strikeforce founder.The court filing provides the following about those organizations:

Combat 18 refers to itself as the "official armed wing of Blood and Honour," a neo-Nazi organization started in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. "Combat 18 ascribed to the concept of leaderless resistance similar to lone wolves of small cell structures employed by other terrorist organizations and derived its name from A.H., the initials of Adolph Hitler, which are the first and eighth letters of the alphabet."

Pulcher is quoted as saying Combat 18 is the more violent faction within the white supremacy movement and the Aryan Strikeforce is an elite division within it.

A statement that all recruits take a blood oath pledging loyalty to the group, even if it means shedding blood, is attributed to him.

All six defendants have been detained pending trial.