A former president of Iran who called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ has been killed in an air strike.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was notorious as a regime hardliner.
From 2005 to 2013 he held the office of Islamic Republic president, under the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, who was himself killed in an Israeli air strike on Saturday.
Ahmadinejad was under house arrest at the time of his death, having fallen out of favour with the regime.
He was killed in a targeted strike by Israel on his residence in Tehran.
At a conference on “A World Without Zionism” in 2005 he quoted from the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, and spoke of Israel as “the occupying regime of Jerusalem”, calling it a “disgraceful cancerous growth” which “must be wiped off the map”.
It was later claimed that his remarks had been misinterpreted in seeming to call for the destruction of Israel.
Interviewed by Piers Morgan on CNN in 2012, Ahmadinejad said: “So when we say ‘to be wiped’, we say for occupation to be wiped off from this world. For war-seeking to (be) wiped off and eradicated, the killing of women and children to be eradicated. And we propose the way. We propose the path. The path is to recognise the right of the Palestinians to self-governance.”
His regime hosted a conference that was widely seen as a platform for Holocaust denial in 2006.
On the second day of the “International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust”, Ahmadinejad announced the setting up of a commission to determine whether or not the Holocaust had happened.
The conference was condemned around the world. A spokesman for President Barack Obama described it as “an affront to the entire civilised world”.
Ahmadinejad later defended the conference, telling Morgan in the 2012 interview: “Researchers and scholars must be free to conduct research and analysis about any historical event.”
Iran’s sixth president had first risen to prominence as mayor of Tehran.
He held office as president in 2009 in a disputed re-election, sparking widespread protests which were violently put down by the regime.
Under his presidency, Iran descended into economic chaos, worsened by the regime’s accelerated pursuit of its nuclear programme incurring international sanctions.
After losing power, he fell out of favour with the Supreme Leader and was denied permission to stand again for election.
He was reportedly placed under house arrest after planning a coup to reclaim power.
His fixed location is said to have help intelligence to enable the successful air strike by Israel.
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