Cook
Banned
On the 30th of April 1980, six armed men stormed the Iranian Embassy at Princes Gate, London and took twenty six people hostage. The six were ethnic Arabs from the Iranian province of Khuzestan and had been trained and armed by the Iraqi secret service.
A six day siege ensued during which police negotiators tried to negotiate the peaceful surrender of the terrorists, managing to obtain the release of six hostages in exchange for minor concessions. The negotiator’s task was not made easier by the blanket refusal of the new Iranian Revolutionary Government to discuss negotiations, accuse the terrorists of being American agents and announce on Iranian radio that the Iranians being held hostage were keen to be martyred for the revolution. By the sixth day negotiations had come to a complete standstill.
In an attempt to pressure the police and British government the terrorists murdered one of the hostages: Abbas Lavasani, the Embassy’s Press Officer. At which point the siege was handed over from the police to the British Special Air Service who stormed the embassy and rescued all but one of the remaining hostages. Ali Akbar Samadzadeh, a minor Embassy employee was died when the terrorists sprayed the hostages with bullets when they realised the embassy was being assaulted.
During the course of the SAS assault five of the terrorists were killed. The sixth, who tried to pass himself off as on of the hostages, was identified by the real hostages and captured alive.
This was in line with British government policy and the rules of engagement at the time, that negotiations were to be exhausted and either a hostage killed or their deaths an imminent certainty before the civil authorities would hand over to the SAS and an armed rescue attempted.
However, during their reconnaissance of the embassy’s roof on the first night of the siege the SAS discovered that there was a skylight leading into a room on the fourth floor that could be accessed without difficulty. One SAS operator actually entered the building, walked to the top landing of the central stairs before withdrawing again to the roof. The option was therefore available to carry out a silent breach of the fourth floor and assaulting down the building before any hostages had been killed. This wasn’t done because, as noted earlier it was not in line with govt. policy and the ROE of the time and would have been extra-judicial killing and subject to criminal prosecution.
Things have moved on. These days the likelihood of a peaceful, negotiated resolution in these situations has shrunk virtually to nil, making an early breach, if seen as feasible, the best chance of all of the hostages coming out alive.
But what if the government or the police commanders concluded that the terrorists were determined to kill their hostages and the SAS were ordered to assault the embassy?
How would the British public and world opinion respond to an assault that resulted in one or two hostage’s lives being lost and that killed five of the six terrorists before all lines of negotiation were exhausted?
A six day siege ensued during which police negotiators tried to negotiate the peaceful surrender of the terrorists, managing to obtain the release of six hostages in exchange for minor concessions. The negotiator’s task was not made easier by the blanket refusal of the new Iranian Revolutionary Government to discuss negotiations, accuse the terrorists of being American agents and announce on Iranian radio that the Iranians being held hostage were keen to be martyred for the revolution. By the sixth day negotiations had come to a complete standstill.
In an attempt to pressure the police and British government the terrorists murdered one of the hostages: Abbas Lavasani, the Embassy’s Press Officer. At which point the siege was handed over from the police to the British Special Air Service who stormed the embassy and rescued all but one of the remaining hostages. Ali Akbar Samadzadeh, a minor Embassy employee was died when the terrorists sprayed the hostages with bullets when they realised the embassy was being assaulted.
During the course of the SAS assault five of the terrorists were killed. The sixth, who tried to pass himself off as on of the hostages, was identified by the real hostages and captured alive.
This was in line with British government policy and the rules of engagement at the time, that negotiations were to be exhausted and either a hostage killed or their deaths an imminent certainty before the civil authorities would hand over to the SAS and an armed rescue attempted.
However, during their reconnaissance of the embassy’s roof on the first night of the siege the SAS discovered that there was a skylight leading into a room on the fourth floor that could be accessed without difficulty. One SAS operator actually entered the building, walked to the top landing of the central stairs before withdrawing again to the roof. The option was therefore available to carry out a silent breach of the fourth floor and assaulting down the building before any hostages had been killed. This wasn’t done because, as noted earlier it was not in line with govt. policy and the ROE of the time and would have been extra-judicial killing and subject to criminal prosecution.
Things have moved on. These days the likelihood of a peaceful, negotiated resolution in these situations has shrunk virtually to nil, making an early breach, if seen as feasible, the best chance of all of the hostages coming out alive.
But what if the government or the police commanders concluded that the terrorists were determined to kill their hostages and the SAS were ordered to assault the embassy?
How would the British public and world opinion respond to an assault that resulted in one or two hostage’s lives being lost and that killed five of the six terrorists before all lines of negotiation were exhausted?
