A video featuring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going viral on social media, with users sharing the clip as purported proof that Ahmadinejad is alive. The claim is circulating in the backdrop of the ongoing conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States, during which Israel has reportedly targeted and claimed to have eliminated several prominent members of the Iranian establishment, including the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
An X user, @Sentletse, posted the video on March 4, claiming in the caption that Ahmadinejad is “alive and well.” The post has garnered over 501,000 views and has been reposted more than 1,200 times. (Archive)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is alive and well.
The President that Iran needs right now. pic.twitter.com/ypubwH7upF
— Sentletse 🇿🇦🇷🇺🇵🇸🇱🇧 (@Sentletse) March 4, 2026
News outlet Zee News published a report on March 4 that included a screengrab from the viral video. The headline of the report, originally in Hindi, translates roughly to: “Is the Tiger Really Still Alive? Iran’s top leader appears after 4 days, evading the US attack.”
The article used the screengrab from the viral clip while suggesting that Ahmadinejad had resurfaced days after reports of Israeli strikes targeting members of Iran’s leadership. (Archive)
On march 4, Azerbaijani media outlet Azernews published an article citing the viral video and claimed that Ahmadinejad was seen alive. The headline said, ‘Former Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears in video after death rumors circulate’.
Several other users shared the same video, claiming that it proved that the former Iranian president was alive.
Fact Check
To verify the authenticity of the claim, we first checked whether the video was recent. We broke the viral clip into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on several of them. This led us to an Instagram post dated February 15, 2026, in which a user had shared the same video that is now circulating online.
The caption of the post, written in Persian, translates to:
*“Presence of Dr. Ahmadinejad in Shirgah, Savadkuh, Mazandaran Province. January 18, 2026.
At the funeral and burial ceremony of the respected mother of Dr. Seyed Hassan Mousavi, the Chief of Staff to the President during the 10th government. People of Savadkuh expressed their affection toward Dr. Ahmadinejad.”*
From the caption, it is clear that the video predates the current conflict. It was filmed on January 18, 2026, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended a funeral ceremony in Shirgah, located in Mazandaran Province. This shows that the clip is not recent and is unrelated to the ongoing hostilities involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.
View this post on Instagram
On March 1, The Jerusalem Post reported that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been killed in US–Israel strikes, attributing the claim to the Iranian Labour News Agency. However, on March 3, Iran International reported that Ahmadinejad was alive, citing unnamed “sources”.
At present, there is no conclusive confirmation regarding Ahmadinejad’s status, as multiple Iranian media outlets have published conflicting reports on the matter. What can be established, however, is that the viral video is not recent. Our verification shows that the clip dates back to January 18, 2026, when Ahmadinejad attended a funeral ceremony in northern Iran.
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.
