Iran’s hard-line former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (File photo)

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline figure known for his confrontational rhetoric and role in Tehran’s nuclear defiance, was reportedly killed during Israeli airstrikes inside Iran on Saturday. According to media reports like Israeli outlet Ma’ariv quoted by NY Post, Ahmadinejad was under house arrest at the time and was killed in a targeted strike on his residence.Israeli War room also quoted Iranian media, to report the death. “Former president of Iran’s Islamist Terror Regime, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was eliminated, per Iranian media. Ahm_{adinejad was sanctioned by the US in 2023 for involvement in the wrongful detention of Americans,” it said.Ahmadinejad, Iran’s sixth president from 2005 to 2013, rose quickly from his previous role as Tehran’s mayor to a surprise againsr establishment figure Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the 2005 runoff. At home and abroad, he was often viewed as a confrontational hardliner whose economic decisions contributed to rising inflation, and whose provocative rhetoric further isolated Iran on the international stage.He became especially infamous in the West for his remarks on Israel and the Holocaust. At a 2005 conference titled “A World Without Zionism,” he invoked Iran’s founding leader, now deceased Ayatollah Khomeini, describing Israel as “the occupying regime of Jerusalem” and a “disgraceful cancerous growth” that “must be wiped off the map.” Supporters later argued that translations of his comments were disputed, but critics insisted that the meaning was unmistakably hostile.Ahmadinejad again drew global attention in 2007 during a visit to Columbia University in New York, where he stated, “there are no homosexuals in Iran,” a remark that triggered laughter and widespread ridicule.}