A New York man said Friday that a plan to attack the New York City subway system was ordered by al-Qaida leaders two years ago while he was in Pakistan with a friend, a former airport shuttle driver who has admitted to building the homemade explosives in the plot.

Zarein Ahmedzay, 25, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the foiled New York City subway bomb plot from fall 2009.