Tehran, 1 March 2026 (dpa/MIA) - Iran's former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was killed in an airstrike in Tehran, the state news agency ILNA reported on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad, 69, was killed at his home in eastern Tehran along with his bodyguard, ILNA reported.

During his eight-year term in office from 2005 to 2013, Ahmadinejad was initially the favourite of the ruling Shiite clergy as well as hardliners and conservatives in parliament.

However, towards the end of his term doubts about his policies grew. His nuclear policy led to numerous sanctions against the country and, consequently, to an economic crisis.

Ahmadinejad came under international criticism, primarily for his anti-Semitic remarks. During his presidency, Iran was internationally isolated because of its military threats against Israel and its denial of the Holocaust.

His supporters increasingly turned away from him, and even hardliners found him a controversial figure by the end of his term in office, even though he was initially seen as a favourite of Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.

As president Ahmadinejad relied heavily on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), granting them control over strategic economic sectors along with profits from privatization.

But his attempts to increase the powers of the elected presidency at the expense of the country's clerical leadership – in particular through open conflict over the intelligence service ministry in 2011 - led to a breach with Khamenei, who was himself killed on Saturday.

The Guardian Council, made up of 12 clerics and lawyers and appointed by the supreme leader, shut him out of presidential elections in 2017, 2021 and 2024.

MIA file photo