Israel’s Mossad ran a years-long operation to recruit former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and install him as Iran’s leader. They used a fake climate change conference at a Budapest university as cover for secret meetings, The New York Times reported July 13.

A Hungarian government official asked Ludovika University of Public Service rector Professor Gergely Deli to host the conference as a front for Ahmadinejad to meet Israeli intelligence operatives, Deli told The New York Times.

Deli said he agreed because he believed he might be playing a role in saving lives. Then-Mossad Director David Barnea personally attended at least one of the Budapest meetings, which took place in 2024 and 2025.

Israel’s plan called for Ahmadinejad to take power after Israeli and U.S. forces killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials during February 2026 strikes. On the first day of that campaign, an Israeli strike targeted Ahmadinejad’s bodyguards in an attempt to extract him from Tehran. The extraction failed.

According to four senior Iranian officials, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence arm subsequently placed Ahmadinejad under house arrest after Iranian authorities identified a significant portion of his contacts with Israel. Despite the reported detention, Ahmadinejad appeared publicly at Khamenei’s funeral on July 6, 2026. His office declined to comment on the reports.

Neither the Israeli nor Iranian government has officially confirmed the operation. Haaretz reported that iit drew on more than 30 political, defense, diplomatic, and foreign sources. The New York Times cited U.S., Israeli, and Iranian officials familiar with the effort. These claims have not been independently verified by SOFX.