New York, Oct 18 (IANS): A Bangladeshi man was arrested here Wednesday in a sting operation by US authorities for allegedly plotting to bomb the Federal Reserve bank.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was arrested while he was trying to detonate what he believed to be a 1,000-pound bomb in front of the Fed building on Liberty Street.

Nafis, 21, arrived in the US in January and was planning to set up an Al Qaeda cell and bomb the Federal Reserve in Lower Manhattan, the USA Today reported.

Nafis proposed several targets, including a high-ranking US official and the New York Stock Exchange, before settling on the Fed, the newspaper said citing court documents.

Nafis wrote a statement intended to claim responsibility for the bombing, saying that he "wanted to 'destroy America' and that he believed the most efficient way to accomplish this goal was to target America's economy," the FBI said.

Nafis also included quotations from "our beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden" to justify the expected deaths of women and children.

He was taken into custody after assembling and attempting to detonate what he believed to be components for a 1,000-pound bomb provided by an undercover federal agent.

The materials were rendered inoperable and posed no public safety threat.

Nafis is being charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to Al Qaeda.