Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the sixth president of Iran. He was elected to power in 2005. Prior to becoming president, he served as mayor of Teheran for two years and fought in the Iran-Iraq War. Ahmadinejad is rarely out of the news. He has locked horns with the West on numerous occasions over his domestic and foreign policy.

Ahmadinejad was born in 1956 and grew up in Iran's capital Teheran. He studied civil engineering at university and went on to do his PhD. He became a lecturer at the Iran University of Science and Technology. This was cut short by the Iran-Iraq War, in which he served in the intelligence unit of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution.