Israel has been secretly working with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for years, making him a spy and preparing him to lead Iran again in the future if the current regime is overthrown, The New York Times reported.
The report said that officials from Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency met with Ahmadinejad abroad several times and provided him with money to help cover his accommodation and travel expenses.
The report said that Israeli Mossad intelligence officers met Ahmadinejad abroad several times and provided him with money to help cover his accommodation and travel expenses.
The highly secretive relationship reached its peak in February of this year, when Mossad agents reportedly removed Ahmadinejad from his home in Tehran and took him to a secret safe house.
The operation was part of a broader plan to overthrow the Iranian regime and restore Ahmadinejad to power, but the plan ultimately failed.
According to four senior Iranian officials, Ahmadinejad is currently in the custody of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence agency and is being held under house arrest after the Iranian government discovered his extensive ties to Israel.
Neither Israel nor Iran have commented officially on the report. Mossad did not respond to a request for comment from the newspaper, while Ahmadinejad’s spokesman, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, also declined to comment.
The Budapest meetings:
A key part of Ahmadinejad’s contacts with Israeli intelligence took place in Hungary, specifically at a university in Budapest.
In early 2024, a senior Hungarian government official contacted Gergely Deli, the president of Ludovika University.
The official asked him to host a conference on climate change at the university and invite the former Iranian president.
Deli said he was told the conference was a cover, while the real purpose was for Ahmadinejad to meet secretly with Israeli intelligence officials.
The university president admitted that he knew that inviting Ahmadinejad would damage his reputation and that of the university, but believed that the meeting could save lives for both parties.
“When you have two enemies who want to talk, the best thing to do is help them talk,” he told the newspaper.
Ahmadinejad traveled to Budapest in 2024, where he reportedly met with David Barnea, then head of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency.
Former U.S. officials said Barnea traveled to Hungary specifically to meet with Ahmadinejad.
Shortly after, Mossad informed the CIA that it had established contact with the former Iranian president.
Ahmadinejad returned to Budapest again in June 2025, days before Israel launched a war with Iran.
His Iranian bodyguards said he had twice evaded the troops accompanying him and had spent hours in undisclosed meetings.
When asked where he had gone, he told them he was meeting with university professors, according to Iranian officials familiar with the meetings.
Political change:
Ahmedinejad was president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, and was one of the most outspoken opponents of Israel during that time.
He regularly attacked the Israeli government, questioned the Holocaust, and his government expanded Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
But in the years since he left office, Ahmadinejad has begun to tone down his anti-Israel rhetoric and portray himself as a moderate politician who is critical of Iran’s leaders.
He has regularly denounced corruption among the top brass and criticized the security forces’ treatment of protesters.
He also meets with public grievances in his office every day, sometimes writing letters to ministries to help them.
The change in his appearance has also been noticeable. He abandoned his signature wide-brimmed jacket, began wearing well-tailored suits, trimmed his beard, and learned English.
However, his political ambitions were not over. Ahmadinejad still had support among a section of Iran’s working class and rural population, and he regularly traveled to the country’s provinces to woo his supporters.
But Iran’s Constitutional Court has barred him from running for president three times, in 2017, 2021, and 2024.
A close associate told the newspaper that Ahmadinejad had finally come to believe that he could not return to power under the current regime.
He had told several friends that he wanted to become Iran’s future leader, with the support of foreign powers.
According to the report, Ahmadinejad described himself as someone who could play a role similar to that of Boris Yeltsin in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He used to tell his friends if he became president again, he would recognize Isreal and join to Abraham accord
A former advisor of Ahmedinejad Abdolreza Davari told that the former president is not doing this just for many, but his grievances of the current Iranian regime and the way they behave to him
Written by: Omar Ahmed