Six armed men at Princes Gate
At about 11:30 a.m. on 30 April 1980, six armed men stormed the Iranian Embassy at 16 Princes Gate, South Kensington. According to the National Army Museum, they belonged to the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan, Iranian Arabs campaigning over the province of Khuzestan. They demanded the release of 91 Arab prisoners held in Khuzestan and, later, safe passage out of Britain.
They took 26 people hostage. Among them was PC Trevor Lock of the Metropolitan Police Diplomatic Protection Group, who had been on duty outside the front entrance.
Five days of negotiation
For five days the Metropolitan Police negotiated. Five hostages were released during the siege. The government refused the gunmen’s demand for safe conduct out of the country; Home Secretary William Whitelaw led the government response, and ministers met in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room from the first day. As a concession, the BBC broadcast a statement from the gunmen.
On the afternoon of 5 May the gunmen killed an embassy official, Abbas Lavasani; his body was pushed out of the building early that evening. Whitelaw later told the House of Commons: “I authorised, at the Commissioner’s request, the commitment of the SAS.”
The assault
The assault — Operation Nimrod — began at 7:23 p.m. It was carried out by the regular 22nd Special Air Service Regiment; a veteran account published by the National Army Museum names B Squadron. The raid was broadcast live on British television. It was over in about 17 minutes (some accounts say 15).
Hansard records that the terrorists killed two hostages in total — one before the assault and one during it. Five of the six gunmen were killed. The sixth, Fowzi Nejad, was sentenced to life imprisonment and released on parole in 2008, nearly three decades later. No police officers or SAS soldiers were killed.
PC Trevor Lock was awarded the George Medal. Inquests were later held into the deaths of the hostages and the gunmen, and the SAS action was examined; the National Archives file on the siege records both.
The SAS today: what the published standard actually covers
Nimrod made the SAS famous, but the Ministry of Defence publishes no fitness standards for selection into the regular 22 SAS. What it does publish is the route into the Army Reserve SAS units, 21 and 23 SAS (Reserve).
Those units accept applicants with no previous military service, men and women, up to the age of 47 years and 6 months at application. Candidates first complete Army Reserve basic and initial trade training. UK Special Forces selection then begins with a six-day briefing course common to regular and reserve candidates, which includes a 12.8 km assurance march, a swim test and an aerobic test.
The SAS Reserve role page lists the Army Reserve entry fitness standard: a 50 kg mid-thigh pull, a 2.7 m seated throw with a 4 kg medicine ball and level 5.8 on the multi-stage fitness test. That is the floor to apply — not the standard needed to pass selection, and not the bar that the men of 1980 cleared.