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The Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980 was a terrorist siege of the Iranian Embassy in London. The siege was ended when British special forces, the Special Air Service (SAS) stormed the building in an operation codenamed Operation Nimrod.
Background
At 11.30 a.m. on 30 April 1980 a six-man terrorist team calling itself the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRMLA), sponsored by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, captured the building in Knightsbridge, central London.
Initially it emerged they wanted autonomy for an oil-rich region in southern Iran known as Khuzestan; later they demanded the release of 91 of their comrades held in Ayatollah Khomeini's gaols. Only after the incident was over did it emerge that Iraq had trained and armed the gunmen to embarrass Iran, and it would become a prelude to the Iran-Iraq war.
Initially 26 hostages were taken, but five were released over the following few days. Police negotiators attempted mollify the terrorists with supplies of food and cigarettes and on the third day a statement by the terrorists was broadcast on the BBC following threats to kill a hostage. The terrorist unit's Iraqi handler had promised the group that the Jordanian Ambassador would intervene to provide safe passage but when it became clear this was not going to happen the situation in the Embassy deteriorated.
On the sixth day of the siege the terrorists killed two hostages and threw the bodies outside. This marked a crucial escalation of the situation and this prompted Margaret Thatcher's decision to go ahead with the operation. The order to deploy the Special Air Service who had been trained for counter-terrorism was given in the first few hours of the siege. When the first hostage was shot, a note from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner was passed to the Ministry of Defense stating this was now a military operation.
The previously reclusive Special Air Service thus found itself conducting a sharp, violent attack under the glare of the world's television cameras. As they moved into position the landing paths of planes into Heathrow were lowered to provide noise to cover their movements.
The assault
The assault started at 19:23 hours on May 5, 1980 (a Bank Holiday Monday) at the rear of the building with the detonation of a charge in a stair well. This was the signal for a section to abseil down from the roof and enter via the top floor windows.
At the same time another assault team used "frame charges" to remove the windows at the front of the building, setting fire to the room inside.
Meanwhile PC Trevor Lock, a policeman who had been on guard at the embassy, was on his own with "Salim", the leader of the gunmen. When an SAS man appeared at the window PC Lock 'rugby-tackled' the gunman, stopping him from shooting at the SAS man. The SAS then burst into the room and shot Salim. PC Lock was later awarded the George Medal for his actions.
In the panic and confusion of the explosions, the gunmen on the second floor opened fire on the male hostages. One hostage, Ali Akbar Samadzadeh, was killed, and two others were injured. According to other hostages, the gunmen then decided to surrender and gave up their weapons – which were thrown out the window. The SAS entered into the room and demanded that the terrorists were identified. They immediately shot two of the gunmen.
The SAS bundled the hostages out of the burning building. In the process another gunman – reportedly carrying a grenade – was shot dead by the SAS. Outside the embassy the hostages were taken to waiting ambulances. A sixth gunman was identified among them and he was led away by police. Operation Nimrod had taken less than 15 minutes.
Five of the six terrorists were dead and 19 hostages were safe.
Aftermath
There was some controversy over the killing of a few of the gunmen, especially Shai and Makki. They were guarding the Iranian hostages, and towards the end of the raid the hostages persuaded the gunmen to surrender. Hostages witnessed them throw down their weapons and sit on the floor with their hands on their heads (weapons being thrown out of a window and a white flag were seen by video cameras outside).
Dadgar, a hostage at the time (confirmed by two other hostages) said (of the SAS),
- "They then took the two terrorists, pushed them against the wall and shot them. They wanted to finish their story. That was their job." He said that they might have "had something in their pockets but certainly had no weapons in their hands at the time."
However, at a coroner's inquest the SAS were cleared by a jury. One of the SAS soldiers said that he thought Makki was going for a gun, and another said he thought Shai had a grenade and shot him in the back of the neck.
Margaret Thatcher and her husband Denis paid a visit to the SAS at Regents Park barracks after the incident to thank them. "Tom" one of the SAS soldiers present quotes Denis as saying they had partially failed "He had a big grin on his face and said, 'You let one of the bastards live.' We failed in that respect." (Guardian interview (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4467433,00.html) in 2002)
External links
References
- BBC documentary "SAS Embassy Siege", directed by Bruce Goodison, produced by Louise Norman (Best Historical Documentary, Grierson Awards 2003).
- The 1982 movie Who Dares Wins (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083941/) was based on this incident.
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