Shaun Clarke - Embassy Siege

Though still trying to get their breath back, the weary men covered their heads and faces again with the respirator masks and ballistic helmets, humped their bergens onto their backs, picked up their Ingrams and reluctantly began the steep climb to the summit.

Within a few yards they were already gasping for breath, their feet slipping on smooth rocks, bodies tensed against the wind, the sweat soon dripping from their foreheads into their eyes. Twenty yards on, where the wind was even more fierce, the slope rose at an angle so steep it was almost vertical. Holding their sub-machine-guns in one hand and clinging to rocks with the other, they laboriously hauled themselves up until, about 20 yards from the summit, all of them except Baby Face decided to give in. Falling behind, they just leaned against high rocks, fighting to regain their breath, about to call it a day.

Harrison’s Ingram roared into life as he fired a short burst in an arc that tore up earth and pieces of splintered rock mere inches from the feet of the men who had given up. Shocked, they lurched away from the spitting soil and scrambled with a strength they had felt had been drained out of them up the last, cruel section of the slope. Each time they fell back, another roar from the Ingram, ripping up the soil and rocks just behind the men, forced them to move hastily higher, finally following Baby Face off the sheer slope and onto the more even summit.

When the last of them had clambered onto the highest point, gasping but still surprised at their hitherto untapped stamina, Harrison followed them up and told them to remove the masks and breathe proper air. When the men had done so, they were able to look down on the fabulous panorama of the Brecon Beacons, spread out all around them, wreathed in mist, streaked with sunshine, thousands of feet below. Lying there, now completely exhausted, they gulped the fresh, freezing air, grateful that they would at last be able to take a good break.

Just as they were about to have a brew-up, a message came through on the radio. Harrison listened intently, then said: ‘Got it, boss. Over and out.’ Replacing the microphone on its hook, he turned to his weary men. ‘Sorry, lads, no brew-up yet. We’ve got to return straightaway. The Iranian Embassy in London has been seized and we’re being put on stand-by. This isn’t a mock exercise. It’s the real thing. So pack your kit and let’s hike back to the RV.’

Recharged by the prospect of real action, the men hurriedly packed up and began the hazardous descent.

By three p.m. on the first day, in a basement office in Whitehall a top-level crisis management team known as COBR, representing the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, was having a tense discussion about the raid on the Iranian Embassy. Presiding over the meeting was a man of some eminence, addressed as the ‘Secretary’, Junior Defence and Foreign Affairs ministers, representatives of MI5 and the Metropolitan Police, including the Police Commissioner, and the overall commander of the SAS CBQ team, addressed as the ‘Controller’, though in fact he was much more than that when it came to issues involving international politics and the defence of the realm.

‘The function of this meeting,’ the surprisingly genial and unruffled Secretary said, ‘is to lay down guidelines for the police and, if necessary, the Army. First, however, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police will fill us in on the general situation.’

The Commissioner cleared his throat and sized up his audience before speaking. ‘The Embassy is being held by a six-man team of Iranians who were trained in Iraq, issued with Iraqi passports, and supplied with weapons brought in by diplomatic bag from Baghdad. We now know that they all visited the British Embassy in Baghdad last February to pick up individual visas to visit the UK. When asked how they would live in the UK, they each produced the same amount of cash: £275. In each case the purpose of the visit was recorded as being for medical treatment. Once in London, they were placed under the command of an Iraqi army officer, Sami Muhammad Ali, who flew home the day the siege began.’

‘Who’s leading them now?’ the Secretary asked.

The Commissioner showed them a picture of a well-built Arab with frizzy hair, a bushy beard and long sideburns. ‘The ringleader, Oan-Ali,’ he said. ‘Real name Salim Towfigh. Twenty-seven years old. Records show that he comes from Al Muhammara in the Khuzistan province of Iran, just across the Shatt-al-Arab river border with Iraq. Studied languages and law at Tehran University, where he became politically active and eventually militant. Fluent in four languages: Farsi, Arabic, German and English. He’s believed to be one of those who took part in the riots that occurred there on 29 May last year, when 220 men and women in the crowd were reported killed and approximately 600 wounded. Certainly he was imprisoned and tortured by SAVAK, which only made him more militant. On 31 March this year he turned up with four other Arabs in Earls Court Road, where they took two flats at 20 Nevern Place. One of the flats was on the second floor, the other in the basement. Only three of the men signed the register: Oan-Ali, Makki Hounoun Ali, and Shakir Abdullah Fadhil. The caretaker was an Iraqi student studying computer engineering. He says he didn’t examine their passports thoroughly, though he noted that they were issued in Iraq. The men told him they had just flown in from Baghdad. Apart from that, the caretaker learnt little about them. They claimed to have met each other by chance on the plane to London. One said he was a farmer, the other a student, the third a mechanic. The group is particularly remembered by the caretaker and other members of the household because, though Muslims, they came in late at night, invariably drunk and often with local prostitutes. Eventually, when they became embroiled in an argument over prices with one of the ladies in the basement flat, the caretaker, a devout Muslim, threw them out of the house.’

‘Sounds like they weren’t particularly sophisticated,’ the Secretary said. ‘Muslims seduced instantly by Western ways: alcohol and sex. Certainly not very disciplined.’

‘That’s worth bearing in mind,’ the Controller said. ‘A lack of discipline in a siege situation could go either way: either helping us to succeed or leading to mayhem and slaughter.’

Deliberately pausing to let the Controller’s words sink in, the Commissioner then continued reading from his notes: ‘After being thrown out of the house in Nevern Place, the terrorists dropped into the Tehar Service Agency, an accommodation agency run by a Jordanian named David Arafat and specializing in Arab clients with plenty of money and often dubious intentions. Arafat rarely asked questions of his clients, but claims that Oan-Ali told him he had left his previous accommodation because his group had been joined by two other friends and they needed larger accommodation. Subsequently, Arafat fixed them up with Flat 3, 105 Lexham Gardens, just a few hundred yards north of his Earls Court Road office.’

‘And were there more men at this point?’ the Controller asked.

‘No,’ the Commissioner replied. ‘It was the same five who had been in Nevern Place who took over the flat in Lexham Gardens. However, the flat has three bedrooms, two sitting-rooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen, and according to the Egyptian caretaker, the five-man group grew to seven over the next few days. After that, there were times when as many as a dozen men would be there at the same time.’

‘Do we know who the others were?’ the Controller asked.

‘No. We do know, however, that some of the others in his group are former members of the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan and that one of them, Fa’ad, broadcasts for the Arabic and Farsi sections of Radio Baghdad, exhorting the people of Iran to rise up against the regime of the Ayatollahs.’