In the past few weeks, Americans under 50 have been looking up the siege of the American Embassy in Tehran to understand the tensions between the US and Iran. Meanwhile, other incidents that have nothing to do with the US were happening at the same time, because groups of people have always been horrible to other groups of people.
On April 30, 1980, six gunmen from the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan (DRFLA) stormed the Iranian Embassy in London. They were Iranian Arabs opposed to the new government, supported and armed by Iraq. They took 26 hostages, mostly embassy employees, but also British and international contractors, visitors, journalists, and one policeman. The terrorists demanded the release of Arab prisoners in Iranian jails and safe passage out of Britain. Margaret Thatcher refused to promise safe passage. The siege went on for six days, until the British SAS staged a terrifying but brilliant raid to end the standoff. Read what led to the crisis, what happened behind the scenes day-by-day, and the fallout afterward at Utterly Interesting.
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