The Siege: A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World BY Ben Macintyre

In the spring of 1980, as the American hostage crisis in Iran reached a boiling point, a new and harrowing drama unfolded on British soil. Six heavily armed gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages and igniting a six-day standoff fraught with tension and danger.

Policeman Trevor Lock, who had planned a quiet evening at the theater, found himself unexpectedly thrust into the heart of the crisis when the terrorists captured him. Unbeknownst to his captors, Lock concealed a hidden gun, and his unexpected courage became a crucial element in the unfolding drama. The terrorists, well-educated Arabs seeking to leverage Britain’s support in their fight against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, had a hidden ally: the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who funded the operation to undermine Iran.

As the standoff intensified, with police negotiators struggling to de-escalate the situation and violent protests erupting outside the embassy, MI6 and the CIA raced to gather crucial intelligence. Inside the embassy, Lock and his fellow hostages employed every ounce of cunning to outmaneuver their captors. Meanwhile, Britain’s elite special forces unit, the SAS, meticulously planned a high-risk rescue mission.

The situation reached a climax when the terrorists executed the embassy’s press attaché and left his body at the embassy’s doorstep. On the sixth day, the SAS raid commenced in a dramatic, high-stakes operation that would test every participant’s resolve and skill.

Drawing on exclusive interviews and previously unseen files, Ben Macintyre’s The Siege offers a riveting, minute-by-minute recounting of this monumental crisis, a precursor to the conflicts that would shape global events in the years to come.