Ben Macintyre - The Siege - SAS Hostage Drama

On 30 April 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian Embassy on Princes Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. They took twenty-six hostages, including embassy staff, visitors and several British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the stand-off, while the SAS - hitherto an organization shrouded in secrecy - laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod.

The siege marked a fundamental turning point in global history. Middle Eastern terrorism was arriving in the West, and while war between Iran and Iraq would begin in a matter of months, it was in Number 16 Princes Gate that the opening battle was fought. Britain had experienced IRA terrorism before, but never an international terrorist incident on this scale.