Embassy Siege. Shaun Clarke

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      By three p.m. on the first day, in a basement office in Whitehall a top-level crisis management team known as COBR, representing the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, was having a tense discussion about the raid on the Iranian Embassy. Presiding over the meeting was a man of some eminence, addressed as the ‘Secretary’, Junior Defence and Foreign Affairs ministers, representatives of MI5 and the Metropolitan Police, including the Police Commissioner, and the overall commander of the SAS CBQ team, addressed as the ‘Controller’, though in fact he was much more than that when it came to issues involving international politics and the defence of the realm.

      ‘The function of this meeting,’ the surprisingly genial and unruffled Secretary said, ‘is to lay down guidelines for the police and, if necessary, the Army. First, however, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police will fill us in on the general situation.’

      The Commissioner cleared his throat and sized up his audience before speaking. ‘The Embassy is being held by a six-man team of Iranians who were trained in Iraq, issued with Iraqi passports, and supplied with weapons brought in by diplomatic bag from Baghdad. We now know that they all visited the British Embassy in Baghdad last February to pick up individual visas to visit the UK. When asked how they would live in the UK, they each produced the same amount of cash: £275. In each case the purpose of the visit was recorded as being for medical treatment. Once in London, they were placed under the command of an Iraqi army officer, Sami Muhammad Ali, who flew home the day the siege began.’

      ‘Who’s leading them now?’ the Secretary asked.

      The Commissioner showed them a picture of a well-built Arab with frizzy hair, a bushy beard and long sideburns. ‘The ringleader, Oan-Ali,’ he said. ‘Real name Salim Towfigh. Twenty-seven years old. Records show that he comes from Al Muhammara in the Khuzistan province of Iran, just across the Shatt-al-Arab river border with Iraq. Studied languages and law at Tehran University, where he became politically active and eventually militant. Fluent in four languages: Farsi, Arabic, German and English. He’s believed to be one of those who took part in the riots that occurred there on 29 May last year, when 220 men and women in the crowd were reported killed and approximately 600 wounded. Certainly he was imprisoned and tortured by SAVAK, which only made him more militant. On 31 March this year he turned up with four other Arabs in Earls Court Road, where they took two flats at 20 Nevern Place. One of the flats was on the second floor, the other in the basement. Only three of the men signed the register: Oan-Ali, Makki Hounoun Ali, and Shakir Abdullah Fadhil. The caretaker was an Iraqi student studying computer engineering. He says he didn’t examine their passports thoroughly, though he noted that they were issued in Iraq. The men told him they had just flown in from Baghdad. Apart from that, the caretaker learnt little about them. They claimed to have met each other by chance on the plane to London. One said he was a farmer, the other a student, the third a mechanic. The group is particularly remembered by the caretaker and other members of the household because, though Muslims, they came in late at night, invariably drunk and often with local prostitutes. Eventually, when they became embroiled in an argument over prices with one of the ladies in the basement flat, the caretaker, a devout Muslim, threw them out of the house.’

      ‘Sounds like they weren’t particularly sophisticated,’ the Secretary said. ‘Muslims seduced instantly by Western ways: alcohol and sex. Certainly not very disciplined.’

      ‘That’s worth bearing in mind,’ the Controller said. ‘A lack of discipline in a siege situation could go either way: either helping us to succeed or leading to mayhem and slaughter.’