Jerry Drake Varnell, 23, was arrested on Saturday over his alleged plans to detonate an explosives-laden van outside an Oklahoma bank

A 23-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly trying to detonate a bomb in Oklahoma City reminiscent of the deadly 1995 bombing by anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh in the same city.

Jerry Drake Varnell, of Sayre, allegedly tried to trigger what he thought was an ammonium nitrate fertilizer bomb - like McVeigh's - outside a BancFirst branch in the center of the city on Saturday.

A federal complaint says the FBI learned in December that Varnell had wanted to blow up a building and an undercover FBI agent posed as someone who wanted to help him.

'I think I'm going to go with what the okc bomber used,' Varnell allegedly told the FBI's source in an encrypted message.

'What happened in Oklahoma City was not an attack on America, it was retaliation,' he later said. 'The time for revolution is now.'

Varnell allegedly told the undercover agent that he initially wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C. - eight blocks from the White House.

He also considered attacking data centers of Facebook and the Internal Revenue Service before settling on the bank in Oklahoma City.

Authorities say the bomb would have caused 'serious damage'.

Varnell is accused of trying to detonate a bomb outside a BancFirst branch in the center of Oklahoma City on Saturday morning

In a series of text messages with the undercover agent, Varnell 'claimed to have a bunker for when the world (or United States) collapsed'.

'I'm out for blood,' the complaint quotes Varnell's texts. 'When militias start getting formed I'm going after government officials when I have a team.'

Authorities found that he had built a bunker to store food and supplies at his family's home in Sayre. The secret bunker was a large storage container buried on three sides.

Varnell allegedly admitted to an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to stage a bombing similar to the deadly 1995 bombing by anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh (above) in the same city

Varnell told investigators he supported the far-right 'III%' anti-government movement and wanted to form his own armed militia.

According to the complaint, Varnell told the undercover agent that, unlike McVeigh, he did not want to kill a lot of people with his bombing, but to 'cripple the government'.

'Something needs to be done,' Varnell said, but killing a lot of people was not a good idea, according to the complaint.

During text conversations in July, Varnell stated he wanted to conduct the attack after closing hours to prevent casualties but conceded that some bank workers or custodians who were inside the building could be killed or injured in the blast, it says.

Varnell's actions were monitored closely by the FBI for months as the plot developed.

According to the complaint, Varnell and the FBI agent built the bomb in a van in El Reno.

The undercover agent met face-to-face with him on June 1 to discuss obtaining materials for an ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb similar to the one used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Varnell helped assemble the device and load it into what he believed was a stolen van. The bomb was built with 'inert' materials including blasting caps and dynamite that were all supplied by the agent, which meant the bomb was never real.

Varnell then allegedly drove the van from El Reno to Oklahoma City first thing Saturday, just after midnight.

The inert bomb was parked outside the bank and Varnell allegedly tried to used a cellphone to set it off.

He was immediately arrested by the FBI and members of a Joint Terrorism Task Force after trying to detonate the bomb, before 1 a.m.

McVeigh killed 168 people when he exploded a fertilizer bomb outside a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. He was executed in 2001 for the crime

Varnell had allegedly prepared a statement to be posted on Facebook after the explosion, which reads in part that the attack was 'retaliation against the freedoms that have been taken away from the American people' and 'an act done to show the government what the people think of its actions.'

He had told the agent he wanted a way to communicate his message about the bombing to prevent other groups like Islamic State from claiming responsibility.

The bomb was a similar make to the one used in 1995 by McVeigh.

McVeigh killed 168 people when he exploded a fertilizer bomb outside a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. McVeigh was arrested soon afterward, imprisoned and in 2001 executed for the crime.

Varnell's arrest was announced two days after white supremacist and extreme-right anti-government groups clashed with opponents in Charlottesville, Virginia.

One woman killed when an extremist rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, and two police officers died in a helicopter crash.

Varnell is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday afternoon on a charge of attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce.

If convicted, he faces between five and 20 years in prison.