Man With Loaded AK-47 Caught Outside Iranian Activist's Home In NYC

A man armed with a loaded AK-47 was arrested Thursday outside the Brooklyn home of Iranian dissident journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad.

According to a report by the New York Post on Sunday, the federal complaint said the man named Khalid Mehdiyev, 23, was found with the assault rifle, multiple high-capacity magazines and additional rounds of ammunition and a suitcase full of cash as well as two other different license plates when he was arrested after lurking in the area for two days.

Feds said they watched Mehdiyev sitting in a gray Subaru Forester SUV with an Illinois license plate for several hours on Wednesday and Thursday, adding that he ordered food to his car and looked inside of the windows and attempted to open the front door of the residence.

Mehdiyev said he was looking for a new place to live in the Brooklyn neighborhood and tried to open the front door of the residence so he could ask if he could rent a room. Later, he confessed that he had been in Brooklyn “because he was looking for someone,” according to the complaint.

The charging documents made no explicit connection between Mehdiyev and Alinejad but the activist was the target of an international kidnapping plot orchestrated by Iran’s intelligence network last year.

After dozens of Iranian women unveiled in public and sent their videos to the anti-hijab activist in New York, Iran said earlier in the month that sending her footage can lead to up to 10 years in jail.