NYT: Mossad planned to return Ahmadijad to the helm of Iran

The campaign, which culminated in an attack on Ahmadid's bodyguards to free him from domestic arrest on the first day of the US-Israel attack on Iran in February, included a meeting with then-Mousad Chief David Barnea, in the margins of an academic conference in Hungary, reports the report. NYT, broadcast Periscope

A car run by Mossad officials hid the former president in a safe house following the first Israeli air strikes on 28 February, when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, but Ahmadid later left the safe house after being disappointed by Israel's plan to install him, the report said.

Ahmadine's current status is unclear, according to the report.

He was seen for the last time briefly surrounded by guards in disguise and wearing a thick coat at the funeral of Supreme Leader killed Ali Khamenei, and is believed to be in IRC custody for his connections to Israeli intelligence.

It was his first public appearance since the beginning of the US-Israel war with Iran this year.

According to a separate report in Haaretz, also published on Monday, Mossad's plan, which began sometime in 2022, was temporarily interrupted by Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza. However, while the Gaza war was at its height, the plan accelerated, with Barnea directly overseeing efforts to install Ahmadinedin in Iran, he said.

In 2024, the Times reported, Barnea met personally with the former leader of Israel's greatest enemy, recruiting a European ally to provide a reason for Ahmadinejad to leave Iran.

According to the Times, Hungary invited Ahmadinejadin to a climate change conference in Budapest in 2024 to enable the meeting.

The report said Gergely Deli, director of the Ludovica Public Service University, was asked by a senior Hungarian official to invite Ahmadijadin, telling him that the invitation was a cover for the 20th Holocaust president to meet with Mossad agents.

He returned to Budapest in 2025 and met again with Israeli intelligence operatives, the Times said.

From Anti-Israel to Israeli Agent

Ahmadidead, a fierce anti-Israel conservative, served two four-year mandates between 2005 and 2013, during which he repeatedly denied the Holocaust, called for Israel's destruction and implied that the Islamic Republic could build a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.

After Ahmadine left office, authorities repeatedly disqualified him from running in the following elections. In recent years, he became critical of the Khamenei-led regime, accusing senior officials of weak corruption and governance.

Ahmadidead began publicly presenting a more moderate approach and established himself as a lawyer for ordinary Iranians.

According to the New York Times report, Ahmadidead eventually acknowledged that he could not return to power under the current regime and see foreign intervention as his way back to leadership. A close associate told the Times that he viewed himself as a reformer and said Iran would recognise Israel and join Abraham's agreements when he came to power.

He was also concerned that the US and Israel would impose a stranger and that the country would sink into chaos.

Israel also had “several contacts” with Ahmadinejadin during a 2023 trip to an environmental conference in Guatemala, the Times reported. The former president was initially barred from flying from Iranian security services, but posts in social media and a lower protest convinced authorities to let him fly.

According to the Times, Ahmadidead met with Israeli agents in Budapest for the second time in June 2025, a few days before Israel carried out its first 12-day campaign attacks against the regime. He arrived twice to wave his IRC bodyguards during the trip.

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

Haaretz's report said the head of the IDF Military Intelligence and other senior intelligence officers believed the likelihood that the war would break down the regime was low, that the Mossad plan would not work and that only long-term actions could achieve the goal. Much of the scepticism of IDF intelligence officers focused on the final phase, the installation of Ahmadineyadi, and they argued that trying to predict complex political movements in times of chaos was essentially in vain, Haaretz reported.

Military intelligence presented scenarios under which the effort to implement the plan would exacerbate Israel's situation. She was also concerned that the collapse of the Khamene regime would lead to the establishment of a military regime, without civilian components to balance the Revolutionary Guard.

Israel's plan to overthrow the regime, which included a Kurdish uprising, failed and the regime remains committed to the country's control.

Mossad did not respond to a request for comment on the reports. Ahmadine's office refused to comment. /Periscope/