The official insignia of the Israeli Mossad.
Israel spent several years cultivating former hardline Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential replacement for the country’s leadership, according to a July 13 report by The New York Times.
The alleged plot reportedly included a meeting between Ahmadinejad and Mossad chief David Barnea on the sidelines of an academic conference in Hungary, and culminated in a strike on the former president’s bodyguards, freeing him from house arrest on the opening day of the American-Israeli war on Iran in February.
A car spirited Ahmadinejad to a safe house following the strike, the report says, though he later left it after growing disillusioned with Israel’s plan to install him.
Ahmadinejad’s current whereabouts are unclear. The Times report says he was briefly glimpsed, masked and surrounded by guards, at the funeral of slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and is believed to be in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over his ties to Israeli intelligence.
According to the report, Hungary invited Ahmadinejad to a 2024 climate conference in Budapest specifically to arrange a meeting with Barnea. Ludovika University of Public Service Rector Gergely Deli was reportedly asked by a senior Hungarian official to extend the invitation, and was told it would serve as cover for a meeting with Mossad agents.
Ahmadinejad, a staunchly anti-Israel conservative, served two terms as president from 2005 to 2013 as a hardline figure in Iranian politics. After leaving office, he was repeatedly barred from running in subsequent elections.
In the years since, he emerged as a vocal critic of the Khamenei government, accusing senior officials of corruption and mismanagement while cultivating a more moderate public image and positioning himself as a champion of ordinary Iranians.
The Times report claims Ahmadinejad eventually concluded he could not return to power within the existing system, and came to view foreign intervention as his only route back to leadership.
A close associate told the paper that Ahmadinejad saw himself as a reformer, and believed Iran would recognize Israel once he came to power. The associate also said Ahmadinejad feared the United States and Israel might instead impose an outside figure, which he worried would plunge the country into chaos.
Israel’s first contact with Ahmadinejad reportedly came during a 2023 trip to an environmental conference in Guatemala. Iranian security services initially blocked him from flying, the report says, but relented after social media posts and a sit-in protest.
He met with Israeli agents in Budapest a second time in June 2025, just days before Israel launched the opening strikes of its twelve-day war, according to the report. During that visit, he reportedly slipped his IRGC bodyguards on two separate occasions, and Israel is said to have covered his housing and travel costs.
The Times report notes that Israel’s broader plan to topple the regime — which also involved a planned Kurdish uprising — ultimately failed, though it offers few further details.
A separate report from Israel’s Channel 13, published April 13, offered additional detail on the alleged operation, which it said the Mossad had code-named “Puss in Boots.”
According to Channel 13, the plan called for Israeli strikes on IRGC positions along Iran’s border with Iraq in Iranian Kurdistan, intended to clear the way for Kurdish fighters to cross into the country and advance on Kurdish cities in Iran’s northwest.
The Mossad reportedly anticipated that thousands of young Kurds would join the fighters, swelling into a mass movement capable of reaching Tehran itself. That momentum, the plan held, would in turn trigger nationwide protests involving millions of demonstrators and bring down the regime.
The Kurdish offensive was described as one of the operation’s central pillars — one meant to ultimately clear the way for Ahmadinejad to take control of the country.
Ahmadinejad rejected the Times report on April 14, dismissing it outright and describing the claims made in it as “completely false.”
In a statement, his office accused the newspaper of publishing fabricated material to mislead public opinion and stoke internal divisions within Iran. It also denied that he was under house arrest, describing the claim as fabricated to bolster what it called the paper’s “absurd” allegations.
“We categorically reject all the completely false allegations promoted by The New York Times,” the statement said.
The latest reports were clearly meant to stoke internal divisions within Iran, just as Ahmadinejad’s office said. Despite shifting into a reformist position in recent years, the former leader didn’t change his position with regards to Israel by much.
Although there have been some speculations that Ahmadinejad really did meet with the Mossad, as a double agent for Iran, this claim also does not hold up. Israel would have assassinated him if this was the case. The story being completely made up is by far the most logical judgment.
That being said, the Mossad plot to stage a Kurdish offensive in Iran, and spark another wave of protests, is true. In any case, the plot clearly failed, and the government in Iran has arguably emerged more unified, securing much internal support.
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