Only saw the journalists standing behind the barrier taking pictures not blowing windows out and shooting bad people...
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.
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 (SAS), a
special forces regiment of the British Army, 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 remaining hostages and killed five of the six hostage-takers. An inquest cleared the SAS of any wrongdoing. The sole remaining gunman served 27 years in British prisons.