NYT Investigation Reveals Mossad Recruited Former Iranian President Ahmadinejad in Budapest Under Plan to Install Him as Leader After Regime Change

The New York Times reported, citing four senior Iranian officials and former American officials, that Israel spent years cultivating former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset, with a later-stage plan to install him as Iran's leader after regime change 1. Then-Mossad chief David Barnea personally met Ahmadinejad in Budapest in 2024, in a meeting arranged under cover of a climate conference at Ludovika University after a Hungarian official asked the university's rector to extend the invitation 12. The Times reported Israel made secret payments tied to Ahmadinejad's housing and travel, including to his spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr, as part of the cultivation effort 1. Israel struck Ahmadinejad's Tehran compound on February 28, hitting his security detail and vehicle, after which Mossad operatives extracted him to a safe house inside Iran; he later left the safe house under circumstances that remain unclear and was not seen publicly again until an appearance at Ali Khamenei's funeral 12. Iranian officials told the Times that the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence branch has since placed Ahmadinejad under house arrest after uncovering much of his contact with Israel 12. Haaretz separately reported obtaining an internal account of the operation, including reactions inside Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet and the recruitment of collaborators inside Iran 3.