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Lead book review

The SAS explode from the shadows in six days that shook Britain

The siege of the Iranian embassy in London in the spring of 1980 achieved nothing for the terrorists. But the previously reclusive elite army unit soon became the stuff of legend

21 September 2024

9:00 AM

21 September 2024

9:00 AM

The Siege: The Remarkable Story of the Greatest SAS Hostage Drama Ben Macintyre

Viking, pp.376, 25

Ben Macintyre has a knack of distilling impeccably sourced information about clandestine operations into clear, exciting narrative prose. His latest book, about the April 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London, starts as it means to go on – with a snapshot of seven Range Rovers, two Ford Transit vans and two furniture lorries pulling out of Bradbury Lines, the then headquarters of the Special Air Service (SAS) in Hereford.

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