Iranian Embassy siege
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980. A group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy on Prince’s Gate in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, Iranian Arabs campaigning for sovereignty of Khuzestan Province, took 26 people hostage, including embassy staff, several visitors, and a police officer. The Special Air Service initiated ‘Operation Nimrod’ to rescue the remaining hostages, abseiling from the roof and forcing entry through the windows. During the 17-minute raid they rescued all but one of the remains of the hostages and killed five of the six hostage-takers. The SAS raid, televised live on a bank holiday evening, became a defining moment in British history.
About Iranian Embassy siege in brief
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980. A group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy on Prince’s Gate in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, Iranian Arabs campaigning for sovereignty of Khuzestan Province, took 26 people hostage, including embassy staff, several visitors, and a police officer. The British government quickly decided that safe passage would not be granted and a siege ensued. By the sixth day of the siege the gunmen were increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress in meeting their demands. That evening, they killed a hostage and threw his body out of the embassy. The Special Air Service initiated ‘Operation Nimrod’ to rescue the remaining hostages, abseiling from the roof and forcing entry through the windows. During the 17-minute raid they rescued all but one of the remains of the hostages and killed five of the six hostage-takers. The SAS raid, televised live on a bank holiday evening, became a defining moment in British history and proved a career break for several journalists. It became the subject of multiple documentaries and works of fiction, including several films and television series. The building, damaged by fire during the assault, was not reopened until 1993. The sole remaining gunman served 27 years in British prisons. The Iran–Iraq War broke out later that year and the hostage crisis in Tehran continued until January 1981. Nonetheless, the operation brought the SAS to the public eye for the first time and bolstered the reputation of Thatcher’s government.
The SAS was quickly overwhelmed by the number of applications it received from people inspired by the operation and experienced greater demand for its expertise from foreign governments. According to a 2014 study, the attackers were six men who arrived in the UK to study at the University of Iran. The attackers are believed to have been smuggled into the United Kingdom in a diplomatic bag belonging to Iraq. Shortly before 11:30am on 30 April, six men arrived outside the Iranian Embassy in London and almost two hours after vacating a nearby flat in Lexham Gardens. They left the building at 09:09am on April 30, but their initial destination is unknown, but en route to the Iranian embassy. They went to Bristol for a week and then arranged for their belongings to be sent to Iraq, and no longer needed the flat, and then left for Bristol for no longer. On 30 April the men informed their landlord that they were going to Iraq and then stated that they would no longer require the flat. The men typically returned to the flat drunk, late at night, and sometimes accompanied by prostitutes. Within a week, the housekeeper asked them to leave. They soon found another flat, where they told their new landlord they were moving because they had been joined by other men and required larger accommodation. Over the following days, the group swelled, with up to a dozen men in the flat on one occasion. The group collected firearms, predominantly Soviet-made firearms, ammunition and hand grenades, and collected a bag of ammunition and grenades.
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This page is based on the article Iranian Embassy siege published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
