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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Ex-Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said to be under house arrest over reported Israeli contacts

2026-07-13

[CA Post] Short Round pissed somebody off

Former Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been placed under house arrest by the country’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps following a failed Israeli plot to install him in place of the current theocratic regime, according to a stunning new report.

The New York Times, citing four Iranian officials, reported Monday that the 69-year-old is being held by the IRGC’s intelligence wing after he left a safe house run by Israel’s Mossad.

Before last week, Ahmadinejad had not been seen in public since an Israeli airstrike hit his compound in the early hours of Operation Epic Fury Feb. 28, after which he was spirited away to the safe house, the Times reported, citing US and Iranian officials.

The former president, who ran Iran with an iron fist from 2005 to 2013, re-emerged last week — apparently flanked by security guards — during funeral ceremonies for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the same day as the strike on Ahmadinejad’s compound.

The Times initially reported in May that the US and Israel had attempted to put Ahmadinejad — who became a global hate figure during his presidency for publicly denying the Holocaust, calling for the destruction of Israel, and restarting his country’s nuclear weapons program — back in the seat of power.

Ahmadinejad increasingly clashed with the Islamic Republic’s rulers, having been blocked from seeking his old job in 2017, 2021 and 2024.

Since leaving office, the former president had cultivated what Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies described to The Post as a “hybrid populism-nationalism-Islamism” that “posed a real ideological and class-based challenge to the Islamic Republic.”

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad reportedly told associates that he saw himself as a reformist leader in the mold of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin — and would even normalize relations with Israel if he came to power.

More importantly, the outlet reported Monday, Ahmadinejad made contact with Israeli intelligence as early as 2023, when he traveled to Guatemala for an environmental conference — but not before staging an hours-long sit-in at Tehran’s airport after security forces initally prevented him from traveling.

The following year, Ahmadinejad was invited to a climate change conference at Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest, Hungary, an invitation the university’s rector told the Times was extended at the request of a Hungarian government official as a pretext for the former Iranian leader and the Israelis to meet.

“You have two enemies, and if these enemies want to talk with each other, then it’s best to do what you can to make them talk,” the rector, Gergely Deli, explained his decision to the Times.

The Budapest meeting included then-Mossad chief David Barnea, former US officials told the outlet, while the Israelis covered some of Ahmadinejad’s housing and travel expenses.

However, a former adviser to the onetime president claimed greed played no role in his former boss’ activities.

“Ahmadinejad would not do this for money,” Abdolreza Davari claimed to the Times. “He has money; he has a wide economic network. He would do it for power. He wants to be at the helm of power.”

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Posted by: Chantry 2026-07-13 18:23

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