By Gregory Fremont-Barnes

For five days in may perhaps 1980, millions watched worldwide because the shadowy figures of the SAS played a bold and dramatic raid at the Iranian Embassy in London, catapulting a little-known professional unit into the whole glare of the world's media. Hailed by way of Margaret Thatcher as "a extraordinary operation, conducted with braveness and confidence," the raid was once an incredible luck for the SAS, who controlled to rescue nineteen hostages with near-perfect army execution, even supposing hostages have been killed by way of terrorists. regardless of the acclaim and media cognizance, information of the siege are nonetheless mostly unknown and people on the middle of the tale, the identities of the SAS soldiers themselves, stay a heavily guarded secret.This booklet takes a concise and in-depth examine the dramatic occasions of the Iranian Embassy Siege, revealing the political history in the back of it and punctiliously reading the arguable determination by means of the top Minister and residential Secretary to signal over keep watch over of the streets of London to the army. specific bird's eye view art illustrates the instant the partitions have been breached and express how the stern making plans of the operation used to be serious to its luck. With enter from these all for the venture, and dialogue at the powerful education regimes of the SAS, the writer strips away the various secret at the back of the simplest counter-terrorism unit on this planet and their most famed raid.

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Additional info for Who Dares Wins - The SAS and the Iranian Embassy Siege 1980 (Osprey Raid)

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The sound of two magazines being emptied into him was deafening. As he twitched and vomited his life away, his hand opened and the grenade rolled out. In that split second my mind was so crystal clear with adrenalin it zoomed straight in on the grenade pin and lever. I stared at the mechanism for what seemed like an eternity, and what I saw flooded the very core of me with relief and elation. The pin was still located in the lever. It was all over, everything was going to be OK. Fire rages on the first floor of the embassy only minutes after the teams burst in.

Initially it had been considered as an entry point but the planners realized that a loud explosion at the centre of the building would distract the hostage-takers just as the SAS abseiled down the sides of the building. THE SAS ASSAULT At 1923 hours, over the assault teams' radios came the codeword 'Hyde Park' - the signal for the abseilers to hitch themselves to their ropes; then, a few moments later, 'London Bridge' - the signal to descend - followed by Gullan's shout of 'Go! Go! ' Operation Nimrod, the codename for the SAS rescue, was now operational.

I knew at once that something had gone wrong. The explosions - the stun charges in the light-well, and the windows being blown in [at the front of the embassy] had become separated by a few seconds. Or had the whole building gone up? It was a bad moment. I went back into the Briefing Room and said, 'I'm afraid there have been two explosions. It may be The team with call sign that our people have failed to coordinate, or the terrorists may have blown up the Zero Delta stand in front of Embassy, and our soldiers with it.

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