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Inside the six-day siege of the Iranian Embassy in London
On the morning of 30 April, 1980, a group of armed men invaded the Iranian Embassy in London.
They took 26 people hostage, including staff, visitors and a police officer and issued demands in the name of a cause almost no one had ever heard of.
The 'Group of the Martyr', a collection of Iranian Arabs, wanted independence for their province of Iran, but their demands were impossible for the British Government to meet, and so the then-little known Special Air Service (SAS) were told to plan an invasion of the building to rescue the hostages.
The six-day siege was eventually broken by the SAS, and their storming of the embassy galvanised the world as people watched it all unfold on live television.
Historian and author Ben McIntyre takes a deeper look at this dramatic siege and rescue operation, uncovering the real, powerful story of ordinary people responding as best they could to lethal jeopardy.
Further information
The Siege is published by Penguin Random House.
This episode was recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers' Festival.
Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.
