The man, Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, who was from Saudi Arabia and a citizen of Niger, traveled to Afghanistan shortly before the attacks and stayed there afterward, training in Qaeda terrorist camps and then fighting American and coalition forces during the early years of the Afghan war, prosecutors said.
Mr. Harun, 43, is accused of traveling to Nigeria next to plot attacks against American diplomatic facilities in that country.
The charges include conspiring to murder American citizens, conspiring to bomb United States government facilities and providing material support to Al Qaeda. Court papers do not indicate whether he took steps to carry out attacks.
Mr. Harun, who is known by the Pashto pseudonym Spin Ghul, or White Rose, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Friday.
A lawyer for Mr. Harun, David Stern, declined to comment.
Mr. Harun landed on American soil in October after first being detained by two other countries. He was arrested in Libya in 2005 and held there until his release in summer 2011, when the Libyan government was crumbling.
According to his own account, cited in court records, Libyans placed him on a refugee ship bound for Italy. Mr. Harun said he was arrested by Italian law enforcement and imprisoned in that country after proclaiming his affiliation with Al Qaeda and assaulting Italian officers on the ship.
American law enforcement officials interviewed Mr. Harun in September 2011 while he was in Italian custody. Prosecutors said he waived his Miranda rights.
In a motion that was unsealed on Wednesday, prosecutors said that starting more than a decade ago, Mr. Harun was in direct contact with prominent Qaeda leaders, trainers and fighters. While in Africa, the defendant was also in contact with members of other extremist groups that were either affiliated with Al Qaeda or otherwise targeted Westerners.
A grand jury indicted Mr. Harun in February and the case remained under seal until Wednesday. Prosecutors said they kept the case secret to pursue information provided by Mr. Harun.
“Whether they try to attack our servicemen on the battlefield or scheme to kill our diplomats and citizens in embassies abroad, terrorists will find no refuge,” Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
The case of Mr. Harun follows several others in New York federal courts involving defendants who were apprehended abroad and extradited to the United States.
In December, three men of Somali descent — two were Swedish citizens and one a British citizen — appeared in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on charges that they had trained to be suicide bombers with a Somali terrorist group, Al Shabab. In June, an Eritrean man pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan to conspiring to support Al Shabab.
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