The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling, and in 1950 it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, direct action and special reconnaissance. Much of the information about the SAS is highly classified, and the unit is not commented on by either the British government or the Ministry of Defence due to the secrecy and sensitivity of its operations.
The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after 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 who had been guarding the embassy. They demanded the release of prisoners in Khuzestan and their own safe passage out of the United Kingdom. The British government quickly decided that safe passage would not be granted and a siege ensued. Subsequently, 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.
Kathryn Adie is an English journalist. She was Chief News Correspondent for BBC News between 1989 and 2003, during which time she reported from war zones around the world.
Who Dares Wins, also known as The Final Option, is a 1982 British political thriller film directed by Ian Sharp and starring Lewis Collins, Judy Davis, Richard Widmark, Tony Doyle, and Edward Woodward. The film is loosely based on the actions of the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) in the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege; however, the plot makes considerable fictionalised departures from the actual siege and its background, and instead follows SAS Captain Peter Skellen as he infiltrates a terrorist group planning an attack on American diplomats. The film's title references the motto of the SAS.
The Kingdom is a 2007 action thriller film directed by Peter Berg and starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, and Jennifer Garner. The film is set in Saudi Arabia, and is based on the 1996 bombing of the Khobar housing complex, also on the 2004 Khobar massacre and the two 2003 bombings of four compounds in Riyadh. It was released in the United States on September 28, 2007.
Fowzi Badavi Nejad is an Iranian Arab, the only survivor of a six-person group of the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRFLA) that seized the Iranian Embassy for six days in London in 1980. Two hostages were shot dead by the group and the siege was ended when the British Army's elite Special Air Service (SAS) killed the other terrorists. Nejad was sentenced to life imprisonment nine months later.
Richard Henry Morefield was an American diplomat who served in the United States Foreign Service. He was one of the 66 staff members at the American embassy in Tehran who were taken captive by a militant Islamist student group called the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line on November 4, 1979, in what became known as the Iran hostage crisis. He was one of 52 Americans who were held as a hostage for 444 days, until negotiations for the remaining captives being held hostage were concluded with the signing of the Algiers Accords on January 19, 1981, with their release coming the following day.
Mustapha Karkouti was a Syrian freelance journalist and media consultant, residing in London since the early 1970s.
John Thomas "Mac" McAleese, MM was a Scottish soldier who took part in several late 20th century conflicts with the British Army's Royal Engineers and the Special Air Service, which is now within the umbrella organisation United Kingdom Special Forces. During his time in the Special Air Service, he famously had a role in the storming of the Iranian Embassy in London during a hostage taking siege in May 1980.
The 1974 French Embassy attack in The Hague was an attack and siege on the French Embassy in The Hague in the Netherlands starting on Friday 13 September 1974. Three members of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) stormed the embassy, demanding the release of their member Yatsuka Furuya. The ambassador and ten other people were taken hostage. The siege and negotiations lasted five days, resulting in the release of Furuya, the embassy hostages and a safe flight out of the Netherlands for the terrorists. During the incident, a café in Paris was bombed which was linked to the embassy crisis.
The Libyan hostage situation began on the morning of the murder of police constable Fletcher, 17 April 1984 and lasted until 5 February 1985. In accordance with the hostage release agreement, reporting on the incident was restricted until the fall of Gadaffi in 2011.
The 1979 Khuzestan uprising was one of the nationwide uprisings in Iran, which erupted in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. The unrest was fed by Arab demands for autonomy. The uprising was effectively quelled by Iranian security forces, resulting in more than a hundred people on both sides killed.
The 2011 Khuzestan protests, known among protesters as the Ahvaz Day of Rage, relates to violent protests, which erupted on 15 April 2011 in Khuzestan Province, to mark an anniversary of the 2005 Ahvaz unrest, and as a response to the regional Arab Spring. The protests lasted for 4 days and resulted in 12 to 15 protesters killed and many wounded and arrested. 1 security officer was killed as well, and another wounded. Crackdown on Arab political opposition in the area continued since with arrests and executions.
Arab separatism in Khuzestan was a decades-long separatist Arab movement in the western part of the Khuzestan Province in Iran.
Salim is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film directed by N. V. Nirmal Kumar. It stars Vijay Antony and Aksha Pardasany. Produced by Studio 9, Sri Green Productions and Vijay Antony Film Corporation, the film serves as a direct sequel to Vijay Antony's debut film Naan (2012). The film was released on 29 August 2014 to positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success.
The Embassy of Iran in London is the diplomatic mission of Iran in the United Kingdom. It is located in a terrace overlooking Hyde Park in South Kensington, Westminster, London, next to the embassy of Ethiopia. Iran also maintains a Consular Section at 50 Kensington Court, South Kensington. The embassy building, along with the Ethiopian Embassy and the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, is one of a group of Grade II listed stucco buildings.
The Balcombe Street siege was an incident involving members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and London's Metropolitan Police lasting from 6 to 12 December 1975. The siege ended with the surrender of the four IRA members and the release of their two hostages. The events were televised and watched by millions.
Christopher Ranville Cramer was a British news journalist and executive. During his career, he was head of news gathering for the BBC, an executive at CNN International, and a consultant for The Wall Street Journal. Cramer was perhaps best known in his field for raising training standards for journalists who are given dangerous assignments, as well as suggesting safety equipment while away and necessary counselling upon their return. Such methods arose from his being taken hostage in the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980.
Chief Superintendent Maxwell Stamp Vernon was a British police officer and hostage negotiator. Vernon joined the Metropolitan Police after serving as a military policeman during his National Service. He was involved in the successful negotiations to end the 1975 Balcombe Street siege and afterwards served with the Metropolitan Police's fraud squad. In 1980, as a chief inspector, Vernon led the six-man negotiating team during the Iranian Embassy siege. He thought he was close to resolving the siege peacefully when a hostage, who Vernon thought was intentionally provoking his captors, was shot dead. This led to a Special Air Service (SAS) assault on the building which killed or captured the gunmen and freed all bar one of the hostages. Vernon continued to negotiate until the last moment as a distraction technique and was later commended for this by a member of the SAS team.
