Israeli intelligence attempted over several years to recruit former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an asset and install him as the country’s leader following a regime change, according to investigations published by The New York Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The reports, citing unnamed US and Iranian officials, describe a covert operation that included secret meetings in Budapest under the cover of a climate conference, Israeli funding for Mr Ahmadinejad’s travel and accommodation, and a failed extraction attempt on 28 February 2026, when Mossad operatives reportedly moved him to a safe house after an airstrike on his compound in Tehran.

The office of Mr Ahmadinejad issued a statement dismissing the accounts as “completely false” and “Hollywood-style claims,” accusing the New York Times of publishing fabricated reports for payment. It also denied that he is under house arrest. However, four senior Iranian officials told the newspaper that the former president is now in the custody of the intelligence wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, placed under house arrest after authorities uncovered his contacts with Israel. In Budapest, the rector of Ludovika University, Gergely Deli, confirmed that a senior Hungarian official had asked him to organise the climate conference as a cover for Mr Ahmadinejad to meet Israeli agents, a request he accepted in the belief that facilitating dialogue between enemies could save lives. Israeli authorities have not commented on the alleged operation.

The recruitment effort, which US officials say included a personal meeting in Budapest in 2024 between Mr Ahmadinejad and then-Mossad chief David Barnea, was part of a wider Israeli strategy to topple the Islamic Republic. Haaretz reported that the plan, codenamed “Operation Puss in Boots,” also involved arming and training some 16,000 Kurdish forces in Iraq to enter western Iran, though that element never materialised. According to the reports, Mr Ahmadinejad’s motivation was not financial but political: after being disqualified from presidential elections three times, he concluded that returning to power required the collapse of the existing system and privately signalled a willingness to recognise Israel through the Abraham Accords if reinstated. The operation unravelled when Mr Ahmadinejad, reportedly disillusioned with the chaotic rescue, left the safe house and later reappeared at the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The disclosures surface as the United States and Israel continue military operations against Iran. In a separate interview with Salem News, President Donald Trump described Iranian officials as “highly untrustworthy” and said a recent memorandum of understanding was merely a test that Tehran failed, adding that if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon it would use it “within a day.” He also stated that the US had destroyed about 25 per cent of the Iranian regime. The state of the dossier remains opaque: Mr Ahmadinejad’s whereabouts and status are unverified beyond the brief funeral appearance, and no official investigation has been announced by either Israel or the United States. The next factual steps are unclear, though the Iranian authorities are expected to continue interrogating the former president to map the full extent of his alleged cooperation with foreign intelligence.