New Delhi: A New York Times (NYT) investigation published Monday has claimed that Israel spent years secretly cultivating former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset and potential replacement for Iran’s leadership. The operation culminated in a failed attempt to move him to safety during the opening days of the US-Israeli war.
The plan centred on one of Israel’s most unlikely potential partners. As Iran’s president from 2005-2013, Ahmadinejad accelerated the country’s nuclear programme, repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, and denied the Holocaust.
His government also violently suppressed protests that challenged his disputed re-election in 2009, and the judiciary, under his rule, also employed mass executions against political rivals and dissidents.
Yet, Israeli intelligence reportedly came to view Ahmadinejad’s growing estrangement from Iran’s ruling establishment, and his continued support among sections of the working class, as an opportunity.
The effort unfolded through covert meetings abroad, financial support, and an eventual attempt to extract him from government surveillance in Tehran.
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Climate conferences cover for intel meet
The operation took Ahmadinejad from Tehran to Budapest, where academic conferences allegedly provided cover for meetings with Israeli intelligence operatives.
In early 2024, a senior Hungarian government official asked Gergely Deli, rector of Ludovika University of Public Service, to organise a climate conference and invite Ahmadinejad. Deli was informed that the event would facilitate secret talks between the former president and Israeli officials.
According to former American officials, then-Mossad chief David Barnea travelled personally to Budapest to meet Ahmadinejad. Mossad later informed the CIA that it had established contact with him.
Ahmadinejad returned to Budapest in June 2025, just days before the 12-day conflict involving Israel, the US, and Iran from 13-24 June 2025. The Iranian bodyguards accompanying him reported that he twice evaded his security detail and disappeared for lengthy meetings, which he claimed were with university professors.
Israeli operatives may also have contacted him during a 2023 environmental conference in Guatemala.
How Ahmadinejad became Israel’s bet
Ahmadinejad’s political transformation after leaving office appears to have made him a useful prospect for Israeli intelligence.
He tapered down his anti-Israel rhetoric, criticised Iran’s security forces and ruling elite, adopted tailored suits and presented himself as a more moderate populist. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities repeatedly barred him from contesting presidential elections.
According to an associate cited by the NYT, Ahmadinejad concluded that he could not return to power while the Islamic Republic’s existing structure remained intact. He reportedly told confidants that, with foreign assistance, he could lead Iran through a post-regime transition, recognise Israel, and normalise relations under US President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords.
“Ahmadinejad would not do this for money. He has money; he has a wide economic network. He would do it for power. He wants to be at the helm of power,” Abdolreza Davari, a former associate and senior adviser to Ahmadinejad, told the NYT in a phone interview.
Israeli intelligence allegedly financed some of Ahmadinejad’s housing and travel expenses and met him several times abroad.
An airstrike, a black Peugeot, and a safe house
The plan reached its most dramatic stage on 28 February, during the first days of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran.
An Israeli airstrike struck Ahmadinejad’s Tehran compound, hitting his bodyguards’ building and armoured vehicle. Amid this chaos, a black Peugeot arrived and quickly drove him away from the scene.
American and Iranian officials told the NYT that Mossad operatives drove the vehicle and transported Ahmadinejad to a secret safe house in Iran. The operation was intended to free him from government surveillance and begin implementing Israel’s plan to install him as Iran’s new leader.
But Ahmadinejad was reportedly disturbed by the chaotic extraction and increasingly sceptical of the plan. He subsequently left the safe house under circumstances that remain unclear.
Ahmadinejad reportedly under house arrest
Ahmadinejad disappeared from public view until last Monday, when he briefly appeared at the funeral procession of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war on 28 February.
Wearing a surgical mask pulled down below his chin and a heavy jacket despite the 32-degree heat, he stood silently with his head lowered and was surrounded by apparent security personnel.
Four senior Iranian officials told the NYT that Ahmadinejad is now in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing and being held under house arrest after authorities uncovered much of his contact with Israel.
This failed operation formed part of a broader regime-change strategy that also involved plans to arm Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in northern Iraq, seize territory in western Iran, and eventually advance towards Tehran. That operation, too, never materialised.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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