A NEW book about the Iranian Embassy siege of 1980 makes compelling reading.
Six terrorists stormed the building in central London and took 26 staff hostage for almost a week before then-PM Margaret Thatcher finally gave orders for the SAS to go in.
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What followed was a scene of chaos amid the thick smoke of fire and CS gas as the elite soldiers had to make split-second judgments between innocents and terrorists.
“British!” shouted the embassy’s maintenance man Ron Morris.
“Diplomat,” cried Dr Ali Afrouz, the Iranian charge d’affaires, before pointing out that two others claiming to be “students” were in fact gunmen.
Wisely, the SAS hog-tied everyone face down on the grass outside before they set about the task of differentiating embassy staff from the terrorists demanding the independence of Khuzestan, a region in southern Iran.
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Her cheek pressed to the ground, embassy secretary Nooshin Hash- emenian sobbed: “That was fantastic. I think we have just been rescued by one of the finest anti-terrorist squads in the world.”
Indeed. So how shameful to learn that, 44 years later, our elite troops have lost faith in the ability of those in charge to protect them from legal witch-hunts brought under human rights law.
Murky corners
Today, the SAS is facing multiple legal probes into secret missions carried out in Syria, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.
In other words, those who don’t put their lives on the line for others arguing the legal toss about what should and should not go on in the adrenalin-fuelled heat of war.
Do mistakes get made? Of course they do. But better that than being a hostage and your potential rescuers feeling too wary of legal repercussions to storm in and save you.
General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, a former boss of the Special Air Services, says of the unit: “They don’t believe the MoD is able to stand up for them, which is a corrosive and toxic mix hardly conducive to morale and military effectiveness.”
He adds that the NCND (neither conform nor deny) policy of Defence chiefs “doesn’t cut it with people risking their lives.
“No one thinks it’s their problem other than the soldier standing in extreme danger at the tip of the spear.”
In 1980, the SAS soldiers who shot dead five of the terrorists faced accusations that they had unnecessarily killed two of them, but an investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing.
One terrorist survived, served 27 years of a life sentence for manslaughter, and now lives in the UK.
Two of the soldiers involved say now that, in such high-stakes circumstances, it’s “kill or be killed” and, “if you shoot them, you better kill them.
“A wounded animal is always more dangerous than a dead one.”
That’s why it’s so important that Ben Macintyre’s book The Siege has shone a rare light into the terrifyingly murky corners of what these elite soldiers face when they enter life-or-death situations at the behest of those in power.
In another excerpt, one soldier recalls evacuating distressed hostages down the embassy stairs before realising that one of them was a possible terrorist.
“He’s got a grenade,” someone yelled, and all hell broke loose. Four of the rescuers opened fire and killed him before finding the weapon on the fourth step, the pin thankfully still in it.
That’s the high-octane reality of the split decisions the SAS has to make during its secret operations.
So let’s not turn Who Dares Wins into Who Dares Gets Prosecuted.
Bikini boost for Amanda after epic bike ride
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CONGRATULATIONS to Amanda Holden for raising £370k on a 250-mile charity bike ride from Cornwall to London.
Having done three, 350-mile slogs in aid of Help for Heroes over the years, I know only too well the pain of aching muscles and inner leg chafing.
But the upside is that I was the fittest and most toned I had ever been (note use of past tense).
Meaning Amanda will now look even better in a bikini than she does already.
Kemi so canny
TORY leadership contender Kemi Badenoch was criticised for supposedly bottling an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday. She had been invited to appear alongside rival hopeful Robert Jenrick, but cited other commitments.
“Whoever becomes leader will need to be up for scrutiny and media interviews – that’s how the public get to know you,” says a Tory source.
Hmmm. When Laura told viewers that Kemi had declined the invitation but might accept this week, I thought her absence was a shrewd move.
As every self-help guru will tell you, true leaders speak last to maximise their input.
Tom’s a lesson to BoJo
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ANGLOPHILE Tom Cruise is reportedly returning to the US after five years of filming Mission Impossibles here.
His determination to keep the cameras rolling through the pandemic helped plough millions into the British economy, and who can forget the leaked audio when he saw crew members breach Covid rules?
“We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherfers . . . we are not shutting this fing movie down. Is that understood? If I see it again, you’re f***ing gone,” he raged.
They listened, and both movies made it to fruition.
Compare and contrast this passionate outburst to former PM Boris Johnson’s attitude towards Partygate.
Ok, so he didn’t eat the birthday cake, but he still fails to understand how those kept apart from their dying loved ones during lockdown were angered by reports of social gatherings at Downing Street on his watch.
It’s irrelevant whether he attended any or not.
The fact remains that if he’d shown even a smidgen of Cruise’s control over the workplace he was purportedly in charge of, staff might have listened and behaved themselves.
A lucky let-off
JAMES BLUNT said he would legally change his name to “whatever the public wanted” if his Back To Bedlam album returns to No1 this week.
The winner is “Blunty McBluntface” – a choice 50-year-old James has described as unimaginative.
Given that online trolls are fond of referring to him as James C***, one might conclude he’s had a lucky escape.
Killers’ siblings lacking
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COLD-BLOODED killer Virginia McCullough murdered both her parents and spent the next four years spending their pension money while their bodies lay decomposing at home.
Now jailed for life, her crimes only came to light when the couple’s GP raised concerns over missed appointments.
McCullough’s siblings – granted anonymity by the judge – said they had been left “devastated and bereft” at the deaths.
They added: “We have been cruelly robbed of more loving memories and bonds with our mum and dad for years to come.”
Yes, their sister Virginia is 100 per cent the villain of the piece, but am I alone in finding it curious that, if the bonds were so strong, none of them felt compelled to visit and, if necessary, kick the door down to try to see their parents?
FOREIGN Secretary David Lammy travelled to Luxembourg to meet 27 of his European counterparts.
In a joint statement with the EU’s Foreign Affairs boss Josep Borrell, he said: “Our message and our actions have greater force when we speak with one voice.”
Hmmm. As long as that voice isn’t French or German.
AN investigation has been launched after a prankster secretly recorded Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag’s team talks in the dressing room at an Aston Villa match.
Apparently, his instruction to the players “can clearly be heard”.
One assumes that “get a goal” and “stop a goal” about sums it up.
Have I missed anything?
ACCORDING to influential British pollster Lord Ashcroft, the challenge for US VP Kamala Harris is not to define herself before the presidential election on November 5, but to avoid doing so.
He says: “This strategic ambiguity means that moderates who thought Biden was too old and don’t want a return to the Trump circus can cling to the hope that she represents experience and continuity; younger voters fed up with what they see as the compromises of the Biden years can project on to her their hope for something more radical.”
In other words, the same pre-election ambiguity adopted by Sir Keir Starmer.
And look how that’s turning out.
PRINCE WILLIAM met movie director Paul Greengrass last week and pleaded with him to “make another Bourne”.
And unlike his younger brother when he met a Disney exec, he thankfully didn’t ask him to give his wife a job.
