{"id":639435,"date":"2026-04-30T00:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639435\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T00:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:28:12","slug":"today-in-history-april-30-if-militants-were-watching-another-channel-theyd-know-they-were-about-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639435\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – April 30: If militants were watching another channel, they’d know they were about to die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Separatists seized the Iranian embassy in London on April 30, 1980<\/a>, taking 26 people hostage.The Iranian Arabs<\/a> were pushing for the sovereignty of Khuzestan province, and made a list of demands to advance their ambitions.<\/p>\n

Among those taken hostage were embassy staff, tourists, a BBC crew and a British police constable.<\/p>\n

\"SASSAS soldiers abseil down the Iranian embassy building in London. (Nine Archives)<\/p>\n

In the mad rush of the storming of the embassy, the separatists made a serious oversight.<\/p>\n

They did not realise PC Trevor Lock still had his handgun, hidden under his jumper in a holster.<\/p>\n

For six days Lock bided his time, surrounded by militants with automatic weapons and grenades.<\/p>\n

At all times one hostage-taker kept a finger in the pins of their grenade.<\/p>\n

Two days into the siege militant leader Towfiq Ibrahim al-Rashidi noticed a scratching sound coming from the walls.<\/p>\n

\"SASSAS troops prepare to storm the Iran embassy. (Nine Archives)<\/p>\n

Lock told him it was probably mice.<\/p>\n

In truth, listening devices were being drilled into the walls from the Ethiopian embassy next door.<\/p>\n

Becoming aware their subterfuge efforts might be exposed, the British government instructed Heathrow Airport to direct incoming planes to fly low over the embassy.<\/p>\n

Then, six days into the siege, the SAS pounced.<\/p>\n

Several dozen SAS soldiers stormed the building.<\/p>\n

As a stun grenade was dropped through the skylight, abseiling soldiers smashed through the windows.<\/p>\n

\"SASSAS soldiers prepare their drop down the outside walls of the Iranian embassy. (Combined Military Services Museum)<\/p>\n

An alert al-Rashidi was about to shoot an SAS soldier.<\/p>\n

It was at that moment that Lock leapt forward and tackled him, saving the soldier’s life. It was only at that moment that Lock drew his firearm.<\/p>\n

As this was going on, television crews were broadcasting the end of the siege from outside the embassy.<\/p>\n

But the hair-raising live footage was not broadcast on ITV, which opted to continue airing Coronation Street at the time.<\/p>\n

In the episode, Gail and Brian faced a serious cash problem. This was not to be interrupted, ITV determined.<\/p>\n

\"GailGail and Brian on Coronation Street. (ITV)<\/p>\n

It would later be reported that the decision to keep the soap opera on air may have saved lives.<\/p>\n

While the lead-up to the SAS operation was being aired on the BBC, the television in the embassy was set to Coronation Street instead.<\/p>\n

Had they not been watching the soap, the militants would have been forewarned of what was about to happen.<\/p>\n

Five of the hostage-takers were killed when the embassy was stormed.<\/p>\n

The sixth was sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Separatists seized the Iranian embassy in London on April 30, 1980, taking 26 people hostage.The Iranian Arabs were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-639435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}