In a stunning revelation, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the head of a secret service unit tasked with countering Israeli espionage in Iran was an Israeli spy. Ahmadinejad claimed in an interview with CNN Turk that it became apparent in 2021 that the most senior official who was running Israel’s intelligence operations at their core level within Iran was a Mossad operative.
“Israel organized sophisticated operations inside Iran. That’s how they managed to get the information so easily. In Iran, there is total silence over this issue. The person in charge of the unit against Israel was an Israeli agent,” Ahmadinejad said.
The former president further claimed this was not an isolated incident, alleging that about 20 agents in the Iranian intelligence team charged with monitoring Israeli activities were also on the Mossad payroll. Ahmadinejad went ahead to claim that the purported double agents handed Israel sensitive details concerning Iran’s nuclear program, facilitated the stealing of Iranian nuclear documents in 2018, and played a role in the murders of several Iranian nuclear scientists.
These accusations surface just as there are reports that an Iranian spy had given Israel the location of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah ahead of his assassination in an airstrike at the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut.
Ahmadinejad’s words have echoed those of former Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi, in charge of combating Israeli spies allegedly infiltrating high levels of power within the Islamic Republic. As stated in an interview back in 2021, Younesi told them,
“The Mossad has penetrated so deeply into government departments over the last decade that for every official who has reached a high position in this country, their lives are in danger.”
These come at a period when tensions in the region are already high. Recently, the military in Israel announced the beginning of a “limited and targeted” ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, following extensive airstrikes that have killed over 960 people and injured more than 2,770 others since September 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
