The Siege

The Siege reads like a Frederick Forsyth novel but is based on the thrilling true story of the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege which transfixed the world for six days in 1980 climaxing in the heroic and spectacular rescue of hostages by the shadowy but today internationally famous Special Air Service Regiment. 

In 1979 the pro Western Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by a popular uprising and revolution which was soon taken over by Shia clerics led by Ayatollah Khomeini who introduced Islamic rule.
Iranian Arab insurgents seeking self rule were crushed by the Iranian government prompting a group of six extremists with secret assistance from Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime to seize the Iranian Embassy in the wealthy neighborhood of Kensington, London on 30 April taking staff, visitors including two BBC employees and a police constable hostage.
The gang soon issued demands for the release of prisoners or the embassy would be destroyed and the hostages killed.

The United Kingdom with Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher at the helm was a troubled declining former superpower overshadowed by the United States, preoccupied with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Cold War, threatened by industrial strife and social revolution while the sun set on the colonial British Empire. Revolutionary Iran and the UK held each other in mutual disdain but were equally determined that they would not give in to the terrorists' blackmail.

Alongside the high politics McIntyre narrates hour by hour the increasingly tense battle of wills as the heavily armed terrorists became increasingly desperate ultimately murdering two hostages while police negotiators tried to buy time as a daring rescue operation was put together using the elite SAS, a unit with its roots in British commando missions behind Axis lines in World War 2. 

With the thunder of explosions and the rattle of gunfire black clad men stormed the embassy room by room in front of the assembled world press and a live television audience scoring a stunning victory killing all but one of the terrorists and freeing the remaining hostages
Gripping nail biting tragic and bursting with British black comedy McIntyre takes us back in time and into the heart of how a legendary victory defining Thatcher's Britain came perilously close to total disaster.