He’s the Iranian sniper accused of being a sleeper agent. Now his blue-eyed Alabama bride reveals everything

Playing Call of Duty lead to a love match Morgan Gardner never expected. When she started to play the online game in 2020, known as a violent first-person shooter contest, she didn’t think she’d meet her future husband. Or that he’d be half a world away in Iran. But a friendship that was sparked online evolved into a romance that turned into a marriage between Gardner – a blonde, blue-eyed Alabama girl – and Ribvar Karimi, 26, an Iranian army sniper who moved to America to be with her – and was arrested this weekend as the US waged war with Tehran.

‘Never did I think I was going to meet someone that way. Never did I think I would marry someone from another country,’ Gardner told the Daily Mail. Now the newlyweds are being tested. Karimi was arrested by US immigration officials over the weekend along with 10 others as part of what ICE called their ‘commitment to keeping known and suspected terrorists out of American communities’. His wife, who is seven months pregnant, believes he was unfairly targeted as American relations with Iran continue to fracture.