Before SEAL Team 6 flew into Pakistan and took out Osama bin Laden, probably the most famous special operations raid in history was the British SAS assault on the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. The embassy had been taken over by radical Iranian Arab terrorists, agitating for national sovereignty in the Khuzestan Province of southern Iran. Pretty obscure, right? Obscure, but very serious. The terrorists had a bunch of hostages and were willing to kill them.
The takeover culminated in a swift, efficient and effective assault by a counter-terrorism team of a unit scarcely anyone at the time knew existed — the British Special Air Service (SAS). The special forces unit had been founded in the North African desert in World War II and earned a reputation for dash and derring-do. By 1980, the SAS had become a counter-terrorism outfit of a type the U.S. and European nations developed after the debacle at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists took hostage and ultimately killed members of the Israeli wrestling team. They were a secret unit — until they crashed the Iranian Embassy in front of international news cameras. After that, the SAS was the hottest and sexiest special operations force in the world. Books were written, movies were made.
Speaking of movies…
A new film titled 6 Days recounts the siege and the SAS assault. It hits British cinemas in August and I think we are expected to have it on Netflix sometime around then. Looks good.
deuce says
Looking forward to this. Speaking of spec ops movies, remember the old “Raid on Entebbe” film? I think it was made for TV. Loved that when I saw it as a kid.
JimC says
I do remember that.
JosieW says
That film, “Raid on Entebbe” is on youtube in its entirety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kh4S_6z0ss
I did not know about the British SAS assault. Looking forward to the film.
Tommy says
I remember when that SAS raid took place that was kick ass!
Ike says
Another great movie on the raid was “The Final Option” aka “Who Dares Wins” from ’82. I remember watching that as a kid and not understanding what was really going on other than I thought it was really cool that “ninjas” were using subguns.
JimC says
SAS rocked the ninja thing.
Matthew says
Special Forces more or less are modern ninjas!
Ike says
Jim I sent an you an email (Marine Mounted Detachment) to fp@frontierpartisans. Sorry this is the only way I could figure out to contact you. Thanks.
JimC says
Hey Ike — shoot that e-mail to editor@nuggetnews.com. The other e-mail doesn’t seem to be working.