Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday rejected a New York Times report claiming that Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, had tried to install him in power in Iran and that he is under house arrest. “This claim is completely false,” he said.
In a statement, Ahmadinejad’s office countered that the New York Times had published the fabricated report in order to mislead public opinion and incite internal division in Iran.
The statement also denied that Ahmadinejad is under house arrest. His office said the newspaper had made the fabricated house-arrest allegation only to prop up its own “unrealistic” claims.
“All the claims made in the New York Times report are completely false, and we firmly reject these allegations,” the statement said.
In its report, published last Monday, the New York Times claimed that in recent years Mossad had tried to persuade Ahmadinejad to cooperate with Israel and had considered him a possible candidate for the leadership of Iran. The report also claimed the former president is currently under house arrest.
The plan, the report said, was part of a broader Israeli effort to bring about regime change in Iran following strikes that targeted the country’s top leaders.
Citing US officials, the report claimed: “In recent years Israel has secretly paid for Ahmadinejad’s residence and travel expenses, and Israeli officials have met him several times abroad, including a meeting during a visit to Budapest.”
The newspaper further claimed that the effort reached its final stage in late February, in the opening days of the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran. At that time, as part of a plan to topple the government in Iran, Israeli intelligence officers tried to move Ahmadinejad out of Tehran and sought to establish him as the country’s leader.
According to the report, Israel carried out an airstrike targeting Ahmadinejad’s residence on 28 February, hitting his bodyguards’ building and a bulletproof car.
Citing four senior Iranian officials, it also claimed that after the strike a black Peugeot arrived at the scene and quickly took Ahmadinejad away.
US and Iranian officials aware of the operation said Mossad members were driving the car, and that they took Ahmadinejad to a secret safe house inside Iran.
People connected to the incident said, however, that Ahmadinejad was angered by the hurried rescue, and that doubts had also formed in his mind about Israel’s plan to return him to power.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the 28 February strike. His funeral and burial were held last week, and Ahmadinejad attended — his first public appearance since the Iran war began.
Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s president from 2005 to 2013 and is widely known as a staunch, hardline opponent of Israel and the United States.
The historic call to “wipe Israel off the map” was first made by Iran’s late supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In 2005, President Ahmadinejad quoted that line again at a conference, stirring fresh controversy around the world; in the media, his remark was widely reported in English as “wipe Israel off the map.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report