Report: Ahmadinejad met Mossad chief under Israeli plan to install him as Iran leader

Israel engaged in a multi-year effort to recruit and re-install as leader Iran’s former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The New York Times reported Monday, citing US officials and sources with knowledge of the failed Israeli plot.

The campaign, which culminated in a strike on Ahmadinejad’s bodyguards to free him from house arrest on the first day of the US-Israel attack on Iran in February, included a meeting with then-Mossad chief David Barnea on the sidelines of an academic conference in Hungary, the report said.

A car secreted the former president away to a safe house after that attack, but he later left the safe house after growing disillusioned with Israel’s plan to install him, the report said.

Ahmadinejad’s current status is unclear, according to the report.

He was last seen briefly surrounded by guards — masked and wearing a heavy coat — at the funeral for slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and is believed to be in IRGC custody over his ties with Israeli intelligence.

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It was his first public appearance since this year’s US-Israeli war with Iran began.

According to a separate report in Haaretz, also published Monday, the Mossad plan, which began sometime in 2022, was briefly interrupted by the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught and the ensuing Gaza war. However, as the war in Gaza was at its peak, the plan accelerated, with Barnea directly overseeing the effort to install Ahmadinejad in Iran, that report said.

The next year, he personally met the former leader of Israel’s biggest foe, enlisting a European ally to provide a reason for Ahmadinejad to leave Iran.

According to the Times, Hungary invited Ahmadinejad to a 2024 climate change conference in Budapest to allow for a meeting.

The report said Gergely Deli, the rector of the Ludovika University of Public Service, was asked by a senior Hungarian official to invite Ahmadinejad, telling him the invitation was a cover for the Holocaust-denying former president to meet with Mossad agents.

From anti-Israel to Israeli agent

Ahmadinejad, a virulently anti-Israel conservative, served two four-year terms from 2005 to 2013, during which he repeatedly denied the Holocaust, called to destroy Israel, and hinted that the Islamic Republic could build a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.

After Ahmadinejad left office, authorities repeatedly disqualified him from running in subsequent elections. In recent years, he became a critic of the regime led by Khamenei, accusing senior officials of corruption and poor governance.

Ahmadinejad began presenting a more moderate stance publicly and established himself as an advocate for regular Iranians.

According to the paper, Ahmadinejad eventually accepted that he could not return to power under the current regime and saw foreign intervention as his path back to leadership. A close associate told the Times that he saw himself as a reformer, and that Iran would recognize Israel and join the Abraham Accords when he came to power.

He was also concerned that the US and Israel would impose an outsider, and that the country would descend into chaos.

Israel also had contact with Ahmadinejad during a 2023 trip to an environmental conference in Guatemala, the Times reported. The former president was initially stopped from flying by Iranian security services, but social media posts and a sit-in convinced authorities to let him fly.

Ahmadinejad met with Israeli agents in Budapest a second time in June 2025, days before Israel carried out the opening strikes of its 12-day campaign against the regime, according to the Times. He twice managed to shake his IRGC bodyguards during the trip.

Israel paid Ahmadinejad for housing and travel, according to the report.

Israel’s plan to topple the regime, which included a Kurdish uprising, failed, and the regime remains firmly in control of the country.

The Mossad did not respond to a request for comment on the report. Ahmadinejad’s office declined to comment.