The London embassy of which country was seized in 1980 by gunmen demanding the release of political prisoners?
History of Khuzestan Province both sides. Disruption in the central government made various Iranian regional separatists bolder. In 1980, six Khuzestani Arab separatists temporarily seized the Iranian embassy in London ("see Iranian Embassy Siege"). Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, supported the separatists. Initially it emerged they wanted autonomy for Khuzestan. Later they demanded the release of 91 of their comrades held in Ayatollah Khomeini's jails. Only after the incident was over did it emerge that Iraq had trained and armed the gunmen to embarrass Iran, and it would become a prelude to the Iran–Iraq War. Soon after the embassy drama in 1980, Iraqi troops
Iranian Embassy siege Iranian Embassy siege The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, members of Arabs of KSA group campaigning for Arab national sovereignty in the southern Iranian region of Khuzestan Province, took 26 people hostage, mostly embassy staff, but also several visitors, as well as a police officer who had been guarding the embassy. They demanded the release of Arab prisoners from prisons in Khuzestan and their own safe passage out of the United Kingdom. Margaret Thatcher's government quickly