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Chicago • FBI agents have arrested a man they say planned to set off a car bomb outside a bar in downtown Chicago.

Federal prosecutors say 18-year-old Adel Daoud was arrested Friday night in an undercover operation in which agents pretending to be extremists provided him with a phony car bomb.

The U.S. District Attorney's Office in Chicago said in a news release Saturday the device was inert and the public was never at risk.

Daoud is a U.S. citizen from the Chicago suburb of Hillside.

He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to damage and destroy a building with an explosive.

Federal prosecutors say the FBI began monitoring him after he posted material online about violent jihad and the killing of Americans.