Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed in an airstrike in Tehran, state news agency ILNA reported on Sunday.
According to ILNA, 69-year-old Ahmadinejad and his bodyguards were killed at their home in eastern Tehran.
During his eight-year term from 2005 to 2013, Ahmadinejad was initially favored by the ruling Shiite clergy as well as hardliners and conservatives in parliament.
However, towards the end of his term, doubts about his policies were growing. His nuclear policy resulted in numerous sanctions against the country and an economic crisis as a result.
Ahmadinejad has been criticized by the international community, mainly for his anti-Semitic rhetoric. During his presidency, Iran was isolated internationally for its military threats against Israel and denial of the Holocaust.
His supporters grew increasingly distant from him, and even hardliners found him a controversial figure by the end of his term, although he was initially seen as a favorite of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Ahmadinejad relied heavily on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during his presidency, giving them control over strategic economic sectors and the profits from privatization.
But his attempts to bolster the power of the elected president at the expense of the country’s civilian leadership – notably through a public conflict over the intelligence services in 2011 – led to a break with Khamenei, who himself was killed on Saturday.
The Guardian Council, composed of 12 clerics and lawyers appointed by the Supreme Leader, banned him from running in the 2017, 2021 and 2024 presidential elections.