Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared publicly on Iranian state television on Tuesday, attending a memorial ceremony in Tehran for the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The appearance came just one day after a bombshell New York Times investigation claimed Israel had spent years cultivating him as a potential intelligence asset.
The public sighting put to rest weeks of persistent rumors that Ahmadinejad was being held in detention by the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It marked only his second confirmed public appearance since February, and it raised fresh questions about whether the Iranian regime is trying to project normalcy or whether Ahmadinejad has once again managed to maneuver between the region's most powerful actors.
The timing was hard to ignore. The New York Times investigation, published Monday and attributed to more than 30 political, diplomatic, and security sources, alleged that Mossad maintained secret contact with Ahmadinejad for several years starting in 2022 after Israeli intelligence concluded his views and his relationship with Iran's ruling establishment were shifting. According to multiple outlets citing the investigation, the operation reportedly included covert financial support, secret meetings abroad, and eventually a plan to install him as leader of a post-Islamic Republic government.
The report describes a 2024 meeting in Budapest arranged under the cover of a climate conference, where the rector of a local university, Gergely Deli, said he had been asked to invite Ahmadinejad so that Israeli intelligence officers could speak with him. Then-Mossad chief David Barnea reportedly traveled to Budapest that year to meet Ahmadinejad in person, after which Mossad informed the CIA that a communication channel had been established.
The operation's most dramatic chapter reportedly unfolded on February 28, in the opening days of the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. An Israeli airstrike struck Ahmadinejad's Tehran compound, destroying the building housing his security detail and his armored vehicle. According to American and Iranian officials cited by the Times, Mossad operatives then extracted him from the scene and moved him to a secret safe house inside Iran, intending to eventually position him as the country's new leader. Ahmadinejad reportedly grew disturbed by the chaos of the extraction and increasingly skeptical of the plan, and he left the safe house under circumstances that remain unclear. He was not seen again until Khamenei's funeral.
Ahmadinejad's office has firmly denied the entire account. In a statement carried by Iran International, the office called the allegations completely false and dismissed the story as fabricated. The office also described the report as "Hollywood-style claims" and accused the Times of engaging in psychological warfare aimed at damaging his public standing. The office also separately denied that he had ever been placed under house arrest.
A former senior Mossad official, Sagi Assulin, criticized the disclosure of operational details on Israel's Channel 14, warning that publishing such information could endanger intelligence assets and operational capabilities. Neither the Israeli government nor Mossad has issued an official comment on the report.
Ahmadinejad served as Iran's president from 2005 to 2013 and was known for repeatedly calling for Israel's destruction, denying the Holocaust, and accelerating Iran's nuclear program. Associates cited by the Times suggested his motivations, if the account is accurate, were rooted less in money than in a desire to return to power after being repeatedly disqualified from running in Iranian elections.
