379. The Raid: Inside the SAS Assault on the Iranian Embassy: Part 2

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Hello and welcome to the Battleground Special Forces podcast with me, Patrick Bishop

and Salt David.

Last week we discussed the background to Operation Nimrod, the SAS Operation to end the Iranian

Embassy siege in London on the 5th of May, 1980.

Now that included a discussion of the creation of the SAS's counterterrorism capability,

which started in the mid 1970s, and the siege at the embassy that lasted from 30th April

to the 5th of May.

Today we're discussing the raid itself, what actually happened, how close did it come

to failure and what were the longer-term consequences?

Well, as we mentioned last time, Patrick, the killing of a hostage caused that to give

permission for a rescue mission at 707 pm on the 5th of May, 1980, therefore John Dello,

the ranking police officer at the embassy signed over control of the operation to left

an internal rows, authorising rows to order an assault at his discretion.

The sign note, interesting enough, if anyone wants to follow this up, is now on display

at New Scotland Yards Crime Museum.

Meanwhile, the police negotiators began stalling Selim.

They offered concessions in order to distract him and prevent him killing further hostages,

buying time for the SAS to make its final preparations.

The two SAS teams on scene, Red Team and Blue Team were ordered to begin their simultaneous

assaults under the codename Operation Nimrod at 723 pm.

One group of four men from Red Team ab sailed down the roof from the rear of the building

while another four-man team lowered a stun grenade through the skylight.

The detonation of the stun grenade was exposed coincide with the ab sailing team's detonating

explosives to gain entry to the buildings through the second floor windows.

During the descent, one of the ab sailors, as anybody who was watching this on TV will

now at the time, Patrick, became entangled in his rope while trying to assist him one

of the other soldiers accidentally smashed the window with his foot.

The noise of the breaking window alerted Selim, who was on the first floor communicating

with the police negotiators, and he went to investigate.

The soldiers were unable to use explosives in case they injured their stranded comrade,

but managed to smash their way in through the windows using sledgehammers.

This has made wonder why they went in through the second floor windows, rather than the first

floor windows which were actually rather bigger.

The answer is that those first floor windows, they knew from having the police knew from

having interrogated a guy who was responsible for the upkeep of the building who wasn't

in the building at the time, told them that they had been fitted with armoured glass.

Now the survey for the job of armoring those first floor windows was done amazingly by

the SAS.

The SAS have been asked for their advice about what kind of windows should be installed

there.

They knew that they'd have a tough job getting through those first floor windows, hence

entry at absolutely down the smashing through the second floor windows.

Anyway, after the SAS, then entered, fire started.

I think it was caused by one of the grenades, and it then raced up, the curtains, the drapes

hanging inside the windows, and this actually caused further problems for the poor guy who's

dangling, the poor SAS guy who's dangling from his absailing rope.

Now a second group of outsiders cutting free, and he fell down to the balcony below

jutting out over the front door, and thought they themselves clambered in through the window

and into the embassy.

Now slightly behind red team, blue team detonated explosives on another first floor window,

presumably smashing it through that armoured glass, and forcing Sim Harris, the BBC guy who

just ran into the rooms to take cover, much of the operation.

Of course, it was all visible to this very large press group, which had been camped outside

the embassy slightly to the right of the embassy, on the west side of the embassy, if you

like, ever since the first minutes, really, of the siege becoming known.

So all this is broadcast on live television, and that image will be images of Sim Harris

scrambling across the parapet of the first floor balcony to another diplomatic mission-building

next door, went round the world, and you can see it today on YouTube.

As the soldiers emerged onto the first floor landing, PC Trevor Locke, this is will remember

him from the previous episode of this stoical, very sort of British figure, who has spent

the entire period of the preceding five days, building a very good relationship, workable

relationship with his captors, talking them down, engaging with them, Bruno Brilliant,

human skills he's got.

He now goes into a different mode.

He leaps forward and tackles Salim Salim, of course, being the leader of the terrorist group,

in order to prevent him from attacking the SAS guys as they come in.

Now, Salim, of course, is armed, but he doesn't manage to inflict any damage.

After Trevor Locke wrestles into the floor, he's shot dead by one of the soldiers.

Now, meanwhile, further teams have entered the embassy through the back door on the ground

floor, and cleared the ground floor and the cellar below.

Now, during this phase, the gunman holding the male hostages open fire on their captors,

killing Ali Akbar Sanadzadeh, who was one of the embassy staff, and wounding to others.

Now, this is all going on very, everything is happening very, very quickly, so while

all this mayhem is erupting, the SAS already bundling the hostages down the stairs and

trying to get them out of the building via the back door.

Now, two other terrorists, it was smart enough to kind of conceal themselves among this group

of the hostages, hoping, obviously, to escape.

But one of them is identified where upon he produces a hand grenade.

Now this creates a huge dilemma for the SAS rescuers, and they can't shoot at a concern

for hitting a hostage or another soldier.

So one quick-witted soldier pushes the grenade-breeding terrorists down the stairs and where

two other soldiers shoot in dead.

But he has mentioned here that Trevor Locke, all this time, he's been concealing this

smithram western revolver underneath his uniform, and sharing incredible self-discipline

he refuses all food, because he fears that if he has to go to the toilet, the terrorists

will take him to the toilet, oversee him while he does his business, and that will mean

that he exposes the revolver.

So he doesn't actually use it, but he's thinking ahead and thinking and making every provision

for hanging onto it in case he does that to use it.

Yeah, it's extraordinary, Patrick, and actually in that tussle that you described with

Celine, he doesn't actually draw the revolver at that point, and as he says later, I had

the option to shoot him and I decided not to take it.

I mean, actually, probably would have been the better course of action because there

was always the danger not least because he was holding a weapon that he was going to

be shot by the SAS.

But in any case, he came through that unscathed, and you know, he's one of the great heroes

of the story, isn't he, Patrick?

The raid itself has lasted 17 minutes, involves about 30 members of the SAS, and by the time

it's over, five terrorists have been shot dead, at least two in controversial circumstances

as will come to, and one has been captured.

A second hostage has been killed, as you mentioned, Patrick, shot by the terrorists during

the assault, and two more wounded.

One SAS soldier suffered serious burns to his legs.

Of course, that was the guy who got tangled up in his ab-sail rope.

The rescued hostages and the remaining terrorists, they didn't realize he was a terrorist, of

course, at this point, he still concealed amongst them, were taken into the embassies

back garden, and restrained on the ground, just in case, while they were identified.

The last terrorist, a man called Fauzi Najad, was identified by Sim Harris, and according

to an account by one of the SAS men, there was an attempt to take him back in the building

and shoot him.

The soldier reportedly changes his mind when it's pointed out to him that the raid is

being broadcast on live television.

A later emerged that the footage from the back of the embassy was coming from a wireless

camera placed in the window of a flat, overlooking the embassy by ITN technicians who had posed

as guests of a local resident in order to get past the police cordon, which had been in

place since the beginning of the siege.

So, that was pretty sensible of them, and it was also pretty sensible of the SAS guy

not to shoot Najad, because it would have been, or at least not, to take him back into the

building, because that would have been on camera.

Najad is ultimately arrested, eventually tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in

prison for his role in the siege.

Yeah, interesting, or Fauzi Najad, what became of him, he was up for parole and was actually

released in 2008, and allowed to remain in the UK.

He wasn't given political asylum, but a technical point, but the Home Office

Bureau, the British government, used to be don't give refugees status to convicted terrorists.

However, it was pretty obvious that if Najad was sent back to Iran, he would be formed

in shock, so he was allowed to remain here.

And indeed, still, Isia is clearly no threat to society any more, even though Trevor Locke,

he must be said, did actually oppose his release.

And he's now living, I think, in South London.

Peckham was the last location I could find when I was researching this, living on

Bellifits, which is something that I'm sure people like Nigel Fowler would be

incensed about, but there we are, he's now apparently a lower-biting British London resident.

Anyway, going back to those controversial bits at the end of this story that you just

mentioned saw, I mean, why would the SAS want to shoot non-armed terrorists?

When, presumably, a believing aside any question and morality, he could provide valuable

intelligence as to the group and its motivations and modus operandi, etc.

Well, you know a lot about this, don't you?

Because you put that question to Peter Delabilia, the SAS boss, when you interviewed him

a decade ago, what did he, what did he reply?

What I was expecting to hear, Patrick, is, you know, that was a bit out of order.

They were acting in a kind of slightly renegade manner.

What he actually said to me, his response were two words, professional pride.

So I say, why would they take him back inside?

And his response was professional pride.

In other words, they had set out to neutralize the terrorists.

I killed them, which is the, you know, the accepted method of dealing with hostage

taking situations, because you don't know whether someone's got a concealed grenade or,

in other words, you shoot them dead.

And we know controversially, of course, this happened during the 7-7 terrorist attacks.

But one had obviously got away.

So they wanted to put that right.

I mean, it's really hard to get your head around this as a civilian, Patrick.

And you and I have looked at a lot of hostage-taking situations.

We've looked at a lot of military history, but I was still pretty shocked by this.

I have to say.

It is shocking, isn't it?

We're interesting to put that question to Michael Rose, who I know well.

Can you note down to him as well?

So the much more cerebral officer than Peter de la Billeur,

who's always left a slightly unnerving, glint in his eye.

But I think Mike Rose would say, no, that was the wrong thing.

Of course, it was the wrong thing to do, both on humanitarian and moral grounds.

But also, for that very practical thing, we just mentioned that this guy is a useful asset.

And we live in a country under the rule of law, and now he's been neutralised,

and the law must take its course.

Maybe they missed out that bit in the training.

Hopefully, it's been reinstated.

Since, okay, we're going to take a break there.

Do join us in a moment when we'll look at some of the other controversial aspects of the road.

Welcome back.

Well, after the assault had concluded,

the police began an investigation into the siege,

and the deaths of the two hostages and five terrorists,

including the actions of the SAS.

All of this is pretty standard, Patrick.

The soldiers' weapons were taken away for examination, and the following day,

the soldiers themselves were interviewed at length by the police at the regiment's base in Heriford.

There was particular controversy over the deaths of two terrorists in the

telex room, where the male hostages were being held.

Hostages later said in interviews that they had persuaded their captors to surrender,

and television footage appears to show them throwing weapons out of the window

and holding a white flag.

Now, the two SAS soldiers who killed the men in the telex room,

both stated that the inquest into the terrorist deaths,

that they believed the men had been reaching for weapons before they were shot.

And this is a bit of a trend, I'm afraid, in some of these SAS operations.

You remember some of the stuff that's coming out of Afghanistan, Patrick,

where there's been the question of, you know, was there an immediate threat to the SAS's lives?

And they've said, yes, there was.

They had weapons, and some of the witnesses at the time say there were no weapons.

Now, the result of the inquest, or the inquest jury,

was to reach a verdict that the soldiers' actions were justifiable homicide,

later known as lawful killing.

In other words, no one was prosecuted for doing anything wrong.

But according to hostage, which we've already referenced,

the account of the siege by the two BBC journalists,

the two terrorists in the telex room were pointed out by an Iranian diplomat,

and they pointed out to the soldiers, and they write as follows.

Ali Tabata Bay recalled that one of the SAS men walked across the room

and picked up one of the terrorists, Faisal Bay's hair.

In other words, are there any terrorists in here?

Yes, there are, and there's one.

So they go over to Faisal at the deputy by his hair.

He pushed his head against the wall and jabbed a pistol into the government's neck.

I can clearly remember it, he said, that's Tabata Bay.

Faisal's face was against the wall.

I could see the soldier's gloves holding his afro-style hair.

The soldier shouted bastard and shot him.

Another hostage confirmed that Faisal had indeed been shot through the neck.

Yeah, he's just quite disturbing, isn't it?

I think the inquest was probably in the spirit of the time.

The SAS were heroes.

They weren't going to start raiding on the parade of that point.

There are, it has to be said, there are conflicting reports about how

Faisal, this is the number two, was killed.

His body was found on the ground floor at the foot of the stairs,

with 39 bullet wounds in the face neck, trunk, and all four limbs.

Peppert was how the coroner described it.

Ballistic evidence showed that at least four SAS men had fired at him.

So it does seem so that the SAS were determined to kill the hostages rather than arrest them.

I mean, can that nearly be justified?

I find, I struggle to find this situation.

The trouble is, it's happened too many times.

We have, of course, got another incident with a controversial

in Gibraltar a few years later, Patrick.

I don't think you've covered that, but I'm sure you know all of it.

Very controversial in which an IRA team is on its way to do a job.

There's no doubt there were IRA, and there's no doubt they had explosives,

but they didn't have explosives on them.

The day they were killed in Gibraltar,

and the evidence seems to imply that it wasn't just an arrest operation.

It was effectively an execution.

So there does seem to be a bit of a modus operandi,

particularly among the SAS counterterrorist team,

actually to neutralize, as I say, kill terrorists rather than take them prisoner.

I totally get the idea that you have to be absolutely sure.

They're not going to let off a bomb, but in both cases, both the Iranian Embassy

Siege and also Gibraltar, and we have other incidents.

There does seem to be a willingness to kill rather than to attempt to arrest,

even when it seems fairly clear that these people are not armed.

Yeah, and what's coming out of Afghanistan is really shocking, isn't it?

If OK, we go emphasizes that allegations,

but they're extremely well-supported allegations of SAS teams.

During British military operations in southern Afghanistan,

just routinely going in on night raids into compounds,

literally just shooting males.

They found their males of fighting age without any real justification at all,

as far as it can be seen.

This is a well-known investigation.

There haven't been any definitive conclusions yet.

Well, there is a partner here, which we see from this stretching back many years

that suggests that the SAS is on a disturbing number of occasions,

at least accused of going rogue.

Anyway, now this is really the debut, isn't it?

The SAS saw on the world stage military historians

and people in the military know their existence and their historic exploits.

But now, the suddenly online television in front of it must be sent

rather admiring audience.

So this is the start of a kind of love it, really,

with the SAS by the general public, by the media,

particularly by filmmakers, documentary makers, book writers,

you know, everyone suddenly knows about the SAS,

and they like what they see.

So there's an extraordinary outpouring of national pride as a result of this episode.

Mrs. Sacher and her memoirs wrote the telegrams of congratulation poured in from abroad.

We sent a signal to terrorists everywhere that they could expect no deals

and would extort no favors from Britain.

Got to again, put this into the context of the failed American operation,

tell-to-force operation to freely American hostages in Tehran

of literally two weeks before.

And, you know, British pride, which has been done to quite bad being

preceding decades and now under Mrs. Sacher is beginning to make a bit of a comeback

is gets a huge boost on this.

That should recall that ex-President Richard Nixon wrote

saying that the superb demonstration of British guts and

British efficiency by a commando operation is an inspiring example for free people

throughout the world.

So I'm sure that must have delighted her.

Yeah, and the raid was held as a textbook assault by special forces

and made the SAS then virtually unknown in an anti-terrorist capability,

or a counter-terrorist capability famous around the world.

Hundreds of people aged apparently from five to 90 wanted to join up

immediately wrote the dollar billier later.

For months, I had wanted to show that the SES were not shady

behind the scenes operators, but first-class soldiers.

And suddenly, this fact had been demonstrated to the world in the most convincing way.

All at once, the real value of the SES to the country

and filling a gap in the struggle against terrorism was manifest.

So, inevitably, there's a little bit of smugness here given the success of Operation Nimron

as compared to what the Americans have failed to do in operation

equal claw.

And, you know,

still a billier does actually acknowledge this and says in British political circles,

the certain degree of smugness developed in the way

in which our success contrasted with the failure of the Americans.

Yet, he does nuance it a bit, saying,

no, we never felt we had any cause to be complacent

for having been thoroughly briefed on the problems

of the American rescue attempt, the EU,

but ours did not compare with them in any way.

They are very different things, aren't they?

So,

a billier goes on going to war on the edge of high park

was totally different from secretly deploying a large force into a foreign country

thousands of miles from home.

Our main concern had been to keep out of the play of the press

and not to avoid an armed enemy.

But there were other links weren't there between those two raids.

Yeah, there were.

I think when I mentioned when we were doing the Operation Eagle claw episode, Patrick,

I considered writing a book about the two raids and the links between them.

So, I did a bit of research into this a few years ago.

That book has never been written, who knows whether I'll do it in the future.

But there were some fascinating links.

I mean, the decision by the Iranian terrorists to take over the embassy

in London in the first place was inspired, as we mentioned earlier,

by the radical students,

assault on the US Embassy in Tehran.

Then there was Margaret Thatcher's refusal to give in to the demands of the Iranian terrorists,

or even to let them leave Britain without their hostages,

was because she didn't want to be seen to be weak on terrorism after the recent failure

of the American attempt to rescue their hostages.

But the most intriguing link that I discovered

was revealed by recently declassified UK government papers,

which showed that Margaret Thatcher tried to use the success of Nimrod

and the increased diplomatic leverage this had given her with the Iranians,

who of course were very happy with the end result,

to secure the release of the American hostages.

On the 7th of May, two days after the rescue,

she sent a private message in response to Iranian President

Bani Sadir's note of thanks for freeing the hostages,

and she wrote to him,

The British government have tried to carry out their responsibility,

and I trust that through our action and through your steadfastness,

we shall have conveyed a message to all that terrorism of this kind is self-defeating.

I do not wish to draw parallel between the two,

but I'm aware of your government's position.

Nor do I wish to engage in a debate on the past,

or on the grievances of the Iranian people.

I do, however, ask that the Imam,

and by that, of course, she meant Homeni,

as an act of magnanimity,

which I believe would open the door,

to much future happiness and prosperity for the people of Iran,

should order the release of the American hostages

as a gesture of goodwill to the brave men,

who risked their lives to free the Iranian hostages,

and have thanks to God for their safety.

So she was trying to leverage the successful siege

to get the release of the American hostages.

That's absolutely fascinating, isn't it?

So I mean, it does show what a terrific operator

that Margaret, that show, was, you know,

I mean, always looking at the bigger picture

and trying to, you know, for her,

the relationship with the Americans, very, very important.

And so out of the success of this operation,

she was hoping to figure out an even bigger, wider result.

I didn't come to anything as we were here,

but they, she did follow up on that original message

with a communication from the British ambassador

in Tehran, sending another message to Foreign Minister Godzarbe,

that, to quote, while the incident had undoubtedly brought

our two countries close together,

there were maybe ongoing problem with the American hostages.

Was there, if you asked anything,

we on the one hand already, Iran,

or the other could do to secure that release?

Well, Sardin replied that he was very eager

to settle a problem.

And he did actually,

good or maybe others, you know,

there's a disconnect with you,

rather there is by no means lockstep

between the, I told her,

mainly in the Mullahs and the officials

and the government.

So it seems from our reading of this

that they were probably quite keen

to actually see this as a way

out of the hostage crisis.

But in the end, it came to nothing.

And it would be another eight months before

the hostage crisis was finally resolved.

Yes, that's right, Patrick.

It all came to naught.

And it wasn't until the 90th of January 1981

that the two sides, that's the US

and the Iranians, agreed the Algiers Accords.

In return for the immediate freeing of the hostages,

the United States, in turn,

agreed to unfree 7.9 billion of Iranian assets,

grant Iranians immunity from American lawsuits

and pledge that it is and from now on,

will be the policy of the United States

not to intervene directly or indirectly,

politically or militarily,

in Iran's internal affairs.

And it's interesting to read that.

Patrick, isn't it?

In the context of what's happening at the moment

with Trump daily threatening

doom and destruction on the Iranian regime.

And we're still going to see over the next few days.

And by the time this is actually broadcast,

we may be further down the line.

So whether anything's going to come of that,

the hostages were finally released and flown to Algeria

on the 20th of January 1981.

The day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated

as the 40th president of the United States.

And that's not a coincidence

because the Iranians did not want to give Carter

who had, of course,

authorized Operation Eagle Corps

any political credit for getting their release.

The following day, Carter met them at Viesbaden in Germany

and they'd been in captivity for exactly 444 days.

Okay, that's all from us for this episode.

Do join us next week

for another episode of Battleground Special Forces.

And also on Friday,

when we'll be bringing you all the latest

from Ukraine.

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