Iranian Embassy Siege

The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, London. The gunmen took 26 people hostage—mostly embassy staff, but several visitors and a police officer, who had been guarding the embassy, were also held. The hostage-takers, members of a group campaigning for the autonomy of Iran's Khūzestān Province, demanded the release of Arab prisoners from jails in Khūzestān and their own safe passage out of the United Kingdom. The British government quickly resolved that safe passage would not be granted, and a siege ensued. Over the following days, police negotiators secured the release of five hostages in exchange for minor concessions, such as the broadcasting of the hostage-takers' demands on British television.

By the sixth day of the siege the gunmen had become increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress in meeting their demands. That evening, they killed one of the hostages and threw his body out of the embassy. As a result, the British government ordered the Special Air Service (SAS), a special forces regiment of the British Army, to conduct an assault to rescue the remaining hostages. Shortly afterwards, soldiers abseiled from the roof of the building and forced entry through the windows. During the 17-minute raid, the SAS rescued all but one of the remaining hostages, and killed five of the six terrorists. The soldiers subsequently faced accusations that they unnecessarily killed two of the terrorists, but an inquest into the deaths eventually cleared the SAS of any wrongdoing. The remaining terrorist was prosecuted and served 27 years in British prisons.

The hostage-takers and their cause were largely forgotten after the Iran–Iraq War broke out later in 1980, but the operation brought the SAS to the public eye for the first time and bolstered the reputation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The SAS was quickly overwhelmed by the number of applications it received from people inspired by the operation and, at the same time, experienced greater demand for its expertise from foreign governments. It was not until 1993 that 16 Princes Gate, having suffered major damage from a fire that broke out during the assault, was re-opened as the Iranian embassy.