Authorities have arrested a man they claim was plotting to detonate pipe bombs in and around New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday night.

According to a CNN report, the intended targets of Jose Pimentel were U.S. military personnel who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as U.S. postal facilities and police stations, according to Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The suspect was described by Bloomberg as an "al Qaeda sympathizer," though he is not believed to have ever made direct contact with anyone in the organization, the CNN report states.

He was arrested at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in an apartment in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in northern Manhattan, as he began to drill holes in the would-be pipe bomb, the report said. While authorities had monitored him for over two years, they decided to move quickly for fear that device may soon explode, according to the report.

The suspect allegedly learned how to make a pipe bomb after reading Inspire, the al Qaeda terrorist network's English-language online propaganda, recruiting and training magazine, said the report.