Profile: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mr Ahmadinejad calls himself a friend of the people

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an obscure figure when he was appointed mayor of Tehran in the spring of 2003, and was not even that well known when won the second round run-off vote in the 2005 presidential election.

His rise to power and landslide victory in 2005 surprised the international community, which anticipated a win for the incumbent president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Since then, Mr Ahmadinejad has developed a reputation internationally for his fiery rhetoric and verbal attacks on the West.

The son of a blacksmith, he was born in 1956 in Garmsar, near Tehran, and holds a PhD in traffic and transport from Tehran's University of Science and Technology, where he was a lecturer.

Revolutionary credentials

There has been confusion about Mr Ahmadinejad's role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Several of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in the US embassy in the months after the revolution say they are certain Mr Ahmadinejad was among those who captured them.

He insists he was not there, and several known hostage-takers - now his strong political opponents - deny he was with them.

His website says he joined the Revolutionary Guards voluntarily after the revolution, and he is also reported to have served in covert operations during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

When he became mayor of Tehran in 2003, the former revolutionary guard curtailed many of the reforms put in place by the moderates who had run the city before him.

Iran's outgoing reformist President Mohammad Khatami barred Mr Ahmadinejad from attending cabinet meetings, a privilege normally accorded to mayors of the capital.

Hard-line campaign

Mr Ahmadinejad reportedly spent no money on his first presidential campaign in 2005 - but he was backed by powerful conservatives who used their network of mosques to mobilise support for him.

He also had the support of a group of younger, second-generation revolutionaries known as the Abadgaran, or Developers, who are strong in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis.

The campaign focused on poverty, social justice and the distribution of wealth inside Iran.

He also repeatedly defended his country's nuclear programme, which worried the US and European Union.

Once in power, he made a defiant speech at the UN on the nuclear issue and refused to back down on Tehran's decision to resume uranium conversion.

He continued his defiance despite the reporting of Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council and the possible threat of sanctions.

He said no power could take away Iran's right to nuclear fuel technology.

Confrontational

Mr Ahmadinejad has frustrated the West but pleased many in Iran by his refusal to give in to international demands to curtail his country's nuclear and missile development programme, maintaining his view that Iran has a right to civilian nuclear energy and denying the country is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Powerful figures such as former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani say Mr Ahmadinejad's confrontational approach backfired when Iran was reported to the Security Council.

Ahmadinejad has been a strong backer of Iran's nuclear programme

Iran blames the Security Council resolutions on political pressure from the US and its allies.

It argues that it needs nuclear power and wants to control the whole process itself.

It says it will not break its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and will not use the technology to make a nuclear bomb.

President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stressed that Iran will not yield to international pressure: "The Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and the violation of its rights," he has said.

He has also angered the international community with his views on Israel.

Mr Ahmadinejad has called for an end to the Israeli state and has described the Holocaust as a myth.

In October 2005, Mr Ahmadinejad made a statement in which he envisaged the replacement of Israel with a Palestinian state.

He was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, and his words were widely translated as a call for Israel to be "wiped off the map", though this translation is disputed.

That was quickly interpreted by Western news agencies as a oblique threat to Israel.

Mr Ahmadinejad has since stated that his speech was exaggerated and misinterpreted.

He denied that he meant military intervention and said instead that Israel's "Zionist regime" would eventually collapse on its own.

During a speech at the UN in April 2009, he commented that Israel was a state founded on racist principles, an outburst that prompted a walk-out by delegates from at least 30 countries but earned him a hero's welcome on his return home.

'People's Friend'

Mr Ahmadinejad has made some small-scale concessions to moderates since 2005.

He often speaks of women as being at the heart of Iranian society. He talks of empowering them and makes much of his plan to provide insurance for housewives and share Iran's oil wealth with poorer families.

He said he would not be confrontational in enforcing a campaign in Tehran to insist women obeyed Iran's strict Islamic dress codes and has also allowed women into major sporting events for the first time since 1979.

Mr Ahmadinejad maintains a populist streak, calling his personal website Mardomyar, or the People's Friend.

He also has a reputation for living a simple life and has campaigned against corruption.

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