POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) - A local law enforcement official in eastern Idaho says an FBI sting that netted a Pennsylvania man - being investigated in a plot to blow up oil and gas pipelines - could have gone awry because he and other agencies weren't notified of the operation.

"I think if we have these type of incidents, local law enforcement, at least local law enforcement department heads, need to be notified for the protection of our citizens and our officers," Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen told the Idaho State Journal.

"Especially where this guy already had warrants out for him. There's got to be better communication, and I'm hoping that's what's going to start happening."

Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, was arrested Dec. 5 about 25 miles from Pocatello, where he was staying at a motel. The Wilkes-Barre, Pa., man has been charged with possession of a grenade, which police records indicate was found in a Pennsylvania home where Reynolds stayed before traveling to Idaho. Reynolds' sister found the grenade and alerted authorities.

Reynolds has not been charged with terrorism. But a federal prosecutor at a December hearing alleged that he tried to "provide material aid to al-Qaida" and that the case "involves a federal offense of terrorism," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in its Sunday editions.

As part of an FBI sting two months ago, Reynolds was drawn to a meeting with a purported al-Qaida contact, according to a copy of a federal court hearing transcript obtained by the newspaper. At the meeting he expected to receive $40,000 to finance a plot to use propane-filled trucks to blow up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the Transcontinental Pipeline, a natural-gas line that runs from the Gulf Coast through Pennsylvania to New Jersey and New York City.

But the al-Qaida "operative" was actually a judge from Conrad, Mont., who was working for the FBI.

The FBI also alleges that Reynolds targeted Standard Oil Co. in Perth Amboy, N.J., as well as the Williams Refinery in Opal, Wyo. The New Jersey refinery has been shut down for more than a decade.

Reynolds has been extradited to Pennsylvania where he remains in custody without bail. He is being held at the Lackawanna County Jail, said Michelle Mallard, assistant U.S. attorney from the Pocatello office.

Nielsen first learned that Reynolds had been in Pocatello from an e-mail he received Monday from a fellow member of a statewide anti-terrorism task force.

"I'm not upset," Nielsen said. "I'm not frustrated. Communication between the FBI and local law enforcement has come quantum leaps since 9-11. We're starting to get that opened up."

The Journal News in Westchester County, N.Y., reported Tuesday that Reynolds was born in New York and grew up there. He graduated from North Salem High School in 1976 and two years later was arrested by state police after a failed attempt to blow up his parents' house using propane. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of fourth-degree attempted arson, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to a conditional discharge in New York state.

"I remember thinking it was right out of Rod Serling, and 'The Twilight Zone,"' said Drew Outhouse, the North Salem highway superintendent and Croton Falls fire commissioner.

"It was one of those situations that was just weird. You're surprised when it's someone local in this (plot to blow up pipelines). But at the same time, seeing what he was trying to do that one night, it doesn't surprise you that he could move on to something like that."