Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the reports published by The New York Times, alleging that the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency had plans to recruit him and that he is under house arrest. Rejecting the report, he described the claims as “completely false.” The office of Ahmadinejad office, in a statement, Ahmadinejad office accused the newspaper of publishing fabricated fake reports to mislead public opinion and fuel internal divisions in Iran.
“We categorically reject all the completely false allegations promoted by The New York Times,” the statement said.
Ahmadinejad’s office also denied that the former president is under house arrest, saying that the allegations were fabricated to support what it described as the newspaper’s absurd claims. The New York Times reported on Monday that Mossad had attempted in recent years to persuade Ahmadinejad to cooperate with them, as they viewed him as a potential candidate post-theocratic regime in Iran.
According to reports by The New York Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israel allegedly attempted to recruit Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to lead a post-Islamic Republic government in Iran. The reports claim that Israel’s efforts began before its military campaign in Gaza and continued even during the height of the Israel-Hamas war.
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Ahmadinejad is now believed to be in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the New York Times report, who cited Iranian officials. According to the report, Ahmadinejad in the previous years distanced himself from the regime, improved his English, and improvised his image. The effort to install him as the new Iranian leader gathered momentum after he was invited to speak at the same university in the Hungarian capital where Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had addressed two months earlier in 2025.
According to the NYT report, the head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, David Barnea, traveled to Hungary himself to meet him after he had been invited to speak at the Ludovika University. Haaretz confirmed Barnea’s involvement in the mission. After the meeting, the NYT reported that Mossad informed the CIA that it had been in contact with Ahmadinejad.
