An Israeli strike designed to free Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from house arrest in Tehran, U.S. officials said, was part of an effort to bring about regime change and put him in power.

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Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran registering as a candidate in the presidential election in Tehran in 2024.Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

Mark MazzettiJulian E. BarnesFarnaz FassihiRonen Bergman

By Mark MazzettiJulian E. BarnesFarnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman

The reporters have been covering the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

May 19, 2026, 7:33 p.m. ET

Days after Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials in the opening salvos of the war, President Trump mused publicly that it would be best if “someone from within” Iran took over the country.

It turns out that the United States and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line, anti-Israel and anti-American views.

But the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.

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He has not been seen publicly since then and his current whereabouts and condition are unknown.

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Smoke from explosions in Tehran on Feb. 28, the first day of U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran.Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

To say that Mr. Ahmadinejad was an unusual choice would be a vast understatement. While he had increasingly clashed with the regime’s leaders and had been placed under close watch by the Iranian authorities, he was known during his term as president, from 2005 to 2013, for his calls to “wipe Israel off the map.” He was a strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear program, a fierce critic of the United States and known for violently cracking down on internal dissent.

How Mr. Ahmadinejad was recruited to take part remains unknown.

The existence of the effort, which has not been previously reported, was part of a multistage plan developed by Israel to topple Iran’s theocratic government. It underscores how Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel went into the war not only misjudging how quickly they could achieve their objectives but also gambling to some degree on a risky plan for leadership change in Iran that even some of Mr. Trump’s aides found implausible. Some American officials were skeptical in particular about the viability of putting Mr. Ahmadinejad back into power.

“From the outset, President Trump was clear about his goals for Operation Epic Fury: destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles, dismantle their production facilities, sink their navy, and weaken their proxy,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in response to a request for comment about the regime change plan and Ahmadinejad. “The United States military met or exceeded all of its objectives, and now, our negotiators are working to make a deal that would end Iran’s nuclear capabilities for good.”

A spokesperson for Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, declined to comment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5867553&forum_id=2#49890782)