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On 29th April 1980, British police assured Iran that their embassy was secure. The very next day, terrorists stormed the embassy and took twenty-six hostages. With the Iranian government willing to let the hostages become martyrs, and the British government only willing to talk if the terrorists surrendered, twenty-six lives hung in the balance.
What followed was six days of tension and terror. It was finally ended when the SAS launched a daring rescue mission, broadcast live on television. Millions held their breath, waiting to see the outcome of Operation Nimrod.
30th April 1980: Day 1
On the morning of Wednesday, 30th April 1980, six men left their flat in Kensington, London. They told the landlord that they were spending a week in Bristol before leaving for Iraq, and that they would not be returning. They had made arrangements for their belongings to be sent on ahead of them, they said. The men were Khuzestani revolutionaries, and although they'd spent the previous few weeks enjoying London's bustling nightlife and buying consumer goods, that was simply some downtime before the primary mission, which was about to begin.
The men collected two submachine guns, four automatic pistols, a revolver, ammunition, and hand grenades. They carried the weapons in lightweight holdalls as they walked to their target, the Iranian embassy at 16 Princes Gate in Knightsbridge. It is believed the weapons had entered the UK in an Iraqi diplomatic bag. The men had received a little training in the use of the firearms from the Iraqi army, but they were not particularly competent. Neither the Khuzestanis nor the Iraqis believed that this would be an issue. Pitched gunfights with the British authorities were not part of the plan: British police weren't armed, after all.
