Former Iranian President Ahmadinejad survives assassination attempt

Shafaq News/ Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad narrowly escaped an assassination attempt after his car was reportedly sabotaged.

According to Iranian media reports cited by Newsweek, the plot involved tampering with Ahmadinejad's vehicle, which was discovered just in time by his security team, preventing a potential disaster.

On July 15, while traveling to the city of Zanjan in northwest Iran, the chief security officer noticed that the air conditioning in Ahmadinejad’s usual Toyota Land Cruiser was malfunctioning. The officer advised the former president to switch to another vehicle, as reported by Iran International, a Persian-language channel based in London.

During the journey, Ahmadinejad's security team used the original vehicle with the faulty air conditioning. While on the Karaj-Qazvin highway near Abyek, the car lost control, the brakes failed, and it collided with another vehicle escorting Ahmadinejad. One passenger was injured and hospitalized, but the injuries were not severe.

An anonymous source told Iran International that the day before the trip, Ahmadinejad's security team handed the vehicle over to the presidential institution's unit for air conditioning repairs. Instead of taking it to the repair shop, "special security elements" took the car to an unknown location and later returned it, claiming the air conditioning was fixed.

Pro-Ahmadinejad channel "Dolat-e Bahar" did not report the incident on Telegram, and the former president's office has not commented on the international media reports since Wednesday evening.