THE KILLING HOUSE

April 30, 1980

POLICE CONSTABLE TREVOR LOCK kissed his wife goodbye, rode the Subway into London and took his post outside the Iranian Embassy. He was enjoying a cup of coffee with the Embassy doorman when six terrorists, equipped and financed by Saddam Hussein, attacked without warning.

With practiced precision they went about the business of securing the building and rounding up hostages. For five days they terrorized 26 staff, visitors and foreign journalists with machine guns and hand grenades. Through the ordeal Trevor refused to eat or drink, for fear that if he used the bathroom the terrorists would discover the .38 revolver he was concealing under his coat.

On the sixth day of the siege, when the terrorists’ demands for the release of 91 political prisoners and an airplane to transport them to Iraq were not met, they killed their first hostage.

No one but the highest level of government were aware that a clandestine unit of the British special forces (the SAS) had been waiting patiently for this day to arrive; practicing their deadly trade inside a secret facility known as THE KILLING HOUSE.

In an unprecedented operation, the SAS covered their preparations for a possible rescue attempt by lowering the flight paths of incoming airplanes and redirecting them over the Embassy. Simultaneously, a crew from the British Gas Board began noisily digging up an adjacent street with pneumatic drills. Under the cloak of darkness, teams attached ropes and rappelling equipment to the roof, drilled holes through the walls and inserted fiber-optic cameras and microphones.

When negotiations broke down and the terrorists began killing hostages, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher knew her only option was to give the order she had been dreading and hand control over to the military. At 7:23 pm, the SAS detonated an explosive charge in a rooftop skylight, cut electricity to the building and attacked each floor simultaneously with stun grenades and sub-machine guns blazing.

The world’s media watched in disbelief as the most daring rescue mission in history unfolded before their eyes. A news crew from ITN had established a vantage point at the rear of the building and began broadcasting the images live around the globe. What the cameras couldn’t see was the drama unfolding inside. A stun grenade had ignited a set of drapes and the Embassy was rapidly turning into an inferno. Meanwhile, four of the terrorists were hunted down by the SAS and assassinated while the hostages watched in horror.

In the midst of the flames, explosions and confusion, Trevor seized the opportunity and tackled the terrorists’ leader.
While they struggled over control of Trevor’s revolver, an SAS trooper entered the smoke-filled room and emptied a magazine from his sub-machine gun into the terrorist, saving Trevor’s life.

For his bravery during the six-day ordeal, Trevor earned the George Medal, the highest civilian honor awarded by the Queen. Six members of SAS Pagoda Troop were also awarded medals for their part in successfully rescuing 19 hostages from the blazing Embassy. Fowzi Nejad, the only surviving terrorist, was sentenced to 27 years in prison. He was released in 2006 and lives under an assumed identity, somewhere in Great Britain.

Four months after the terrorist attack on the Iranian Embassy, war broke out between Iran and Iraq. In the eight years that followed, an estimated 500,000 lives were lost.