A Bangladeshi man was arrested Wednesday and charged with trying to detonate a 1,000-pound car bomb outside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, part of a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting, authorities said.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was taken into custody in a lower Manhattan hotel room after repeatedly using a cellphone to try to detonate material that he believed was a bomb in a van parked outside the New York Fed, officials said.

Mr. Nafis, who is 21 years old, was held without bail after a brief arraignment Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. He wasn't required to enter a plea, and his attorney declined to comment. He is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda.

Federal officials said Mr. Nafis was an admirer of al Qaeda but worked independently on the bombing attempt after entering the U.S. in January on a student visa.

According to a criminalcomplaint filed in federal court, the FBI and New York Police Department learned of Mr. Nafis's intent to commit an act of terrorism when he tried to recruit an FBI informant to form a terrorist cell.

The sting began in July when Mr. Nafis was introduced to an undercover FBI agent posing as an al Qaeda facilitator, according to the complaint. In recorded conversations with the informant and the undercover agent, Mr. Nafis said he wanted his plan approved by the highest levels of al Qaeda leadership, according to the prosecutors' complaint. Mr. Nafis said his goal was to execute an attack 'that will shake the whole country' and mused that a successful strike might cancel next month's presidential election.

Earlier this month, Mr. Nafis began gathering material to build an explosive, purchasing batteries and electronics, the complaint said. The undercover agent then gave him twenty 50-pound bags of material described as explosive but that in fact wasn't.

The New York Fed declined to comment. The Fed's Board of Governors in Washington had no comment Wednesday afternoon, a spokesman said.

According to prosecutors, Mr. Nafis claimed responsibility for the planned attack in an article he wrote and gave to the agent for publication in an al Qaeda magazine. He wrote that he carried it out on behalf of al Qaeda with the aim to 'destroy America' by targeting the nation's economy, according to the complaint.

He previously considered targeting the New York Stock Exchange and had also weighed the possibility of carrying out the alleged strike in a suicide bombing, according to the complaint. Mr. Nafis decided not to, the complaint said, because he hadn't made a final visit to Bangladesh to see his family and believed he could conduct more attacks if alive.