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The Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980 was a siege of the Iranian embassy in London after it had been taken over by Iranian Arab separatists. The siege was ended when the Special Air Service (SAS), a British special forces unit, stormed the building in Operation Nimrod. The incident brought the SAS to the world's attention as the whole episode was played out in front of the media.
At 11:30 on 30 April 1980 a six-man team calling itself the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRMLA) captured the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Prince's Gate,South Kensington in central London.
When the group first stormed the building, 26 hostages were taken (including PC Trevor Lock, the police constable on official protection duty at the main entrance, and two visiting BBC personnel -- journalist Chris Cramer and sound recordist Sim Harris -- who had stopped by to pick up visas), but five were released over the following few days. Police negotiators attempted to mollify the gunmen with supplies of food and cigarettes, and on the third day a statement by the group was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 following threats to kill a hostage (which was missed by the group as they were tuning in to Radio 4 instead).[5] The unit's Iraqi handler[clarification needed] had promised the group that theJordanian ambassador would intervene to provide safe passage[citation needed], 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 kidnappers killed a hostage, press attaché Abbas Lavasani, who joined up optionally, and threw his body outside. Covered by armed police, two men carrying a stretcher collected his body and took it to an ambulance, while keeping low to avoid gunfire. This marked an escalation of the situation and prompted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to proceed with the rescue operation. The order to deploy a unit of the Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) wing of the SAS had been given in the first few hours of the siege. At the time B Squadron was on CRW duty. When the first hostage was shot, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, David McNee passed a note signed by Margaret Thatcher to the Ministry of Defence, stating this was now a "military operation".
News teams were camped outside the embassy. A unit from the British news organisation ITN, using recently-introduced Electronic News Gathering (ENG) camera equipment, managed to establish a viewpoint at the rear of the embassy. It was images from this vantage point that showed the SAS raid on the building live on television after their correspondent had been 'tipped off'. However the SAS insisted on a short time-delay between the live events and their broadcast in case the militants were watching the broadcasts.
Alastair
At 11:30 on 30 April 1980 a six-man team calling itself the Democratic Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRMLA) captured the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Prince's Gate,South Kensington in central London.
When the group first stormed the building, 26 hostages were taken (including PC Trevor Lock, the police constable on official protection duty at the main entrance, and two visiting BBC personnel -- journalist Chris Cramer and sound recordist Sim Harris -- who had stopped by to pick up visas), but five were released over the following few days. Police negotiators attempted to mollify the gunmen with supplies of food and cigarettes, and on the third day a statement by the group was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 following threats to kill a hostage (which was missed by the group as they were tuning in to Radio 4 instead).[5] The unit's Iraqi handler[clarification needed] had promised the group that theJordanian ambassador would intervene to provide safe passage[citation needed], 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 kidnappers killed a hostage, press attaché Abbas Lavasani, who joined up optionally, and threw his body outside. Covered by armed police, two men carrying a stretcher collected his body and took it to an ambulance, while keeping low to avoid gunfire. This marked an escalation of the situation and prompted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to proceed with the rescue operation. The order to deploy a unit of the Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) wing of the SAS had been given in the first few hours of the siege. At the time B Squadron was on CRW duty. When the first hostage was shot, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, David McNee passed a note signed by Margaret Thatcher to the Ministry of Defence, stating this was now a "military operation".
News teams were camped outside the embassy. A unit from the British news organisation ITN, using recently-introduced Electronic News Gathering (ENG) camera equipment, managed to establish a viewpoint at the rear of the embassy. It was images from this vantage point that showed the SAS raid on the building live on television after their correspondent had been 'tipped off'. However the SAS insisted on a short time-delay between the live events and their broadcast in case the militants were watching the broadcasts.
Alastair
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