PARIS, Nov 1, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Forty years ago, Islamist students stormed
the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in a
crisis that came to symbolise the long and bitter standoff between the two
countries.
Here is an account drawn from AFP archives.
– Blindfolded, led off –
Mid-morning on November 4, 1979, between 300 and 400 radical college
students storm the United States embassy in central Tehran, scaling its
perimeter wall and railings.
Identifying themselves as followers of hardline cleric Ayatollah Khomeini,
they demand the extradition of the toppled shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from
the US where he is undergoing medical treatment.
“Armed with clubs… the students invade the chancellery after three hours
of resistance, during which marines fired tear gas grenades before being
taken hostage,” reported an AFP correspondent at the scene.
More than 60 Americans are taken hostage, their hands bound and eyes
blindfolded.
Some are quickly freed, while 52 endure the entire ordeal.
A gallows is erected in front of the embassy. “At the end of the rope
hangs a sign: ‘For the shah’,” AFP’s correspondent recounted.
“Next to it burns an American flag, in front of the outstretched fists of
several hundred people who have turned out to demonstrate their support for
the embassy’s occupiers.”
– ‘Allahu Akbar’ –
The US flag is replaced with a green banner that bears the words “Allahu
Akbar” (God is Greatest).
A “loudspeaker shrieks anti-American slogans between verses of the Koran
and revolutionary songs, deafening the police and Revolutionary Guards
deployed in front of a wall covered with wording, some of it anti-American,”
the AFP report says.
Bearded male students armed with clubs and chador-clad female students
with large pictures of Khomeini walk around the embassy gardens.
“Bread and boxes of sandwiches are passed to them through the railings,”
one story says.
– The regime radicalises –
The apparently spontaneous assault on the embassy reignites enthusiasm for
an Islamic revolution.
Hardline religious leaders sideline the moderate interim prime minister,
Mehdi Bazargan, who might have negotiated with the United States.
To chants of “Marg bar Amrika” (“Death to America”), masses of Iranians
demonstrate in support of the occupation of the embassy.
Bazargan resigns on November 6 and a cleric-dominated Revolutionary
Council takes over.
Iran refuses to sell oil to the US, which responds with an embargo on
consumer goods and a financial asset freeze.
The government of President Jimmy Carter breaks off diplomatic relations
with Iran on April 7, 1980, and imposes a trade embargo.
– Rescue disaster –
A top-secret military rescue mission, codenamed Operation Eagle Claw, ends
in disaster on April 25 at a rendezvous and refuelling point in the desert,
roughly 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of Tehran.
A sudden sand storm causes a helicopter and C-130 cargo plane to crash,
killing eight servicemen. The operation is abandoned.
Khomeini sees the event as divine punishment against the United States,
which he labels the “Great Satan”.
The hostages are moved to various cities, including the holy centre of
Qom.
On July 27, the shah dies in Cairo. The students say they will not free
their hostages until his personal fortune is returned to Iran.
– 444-day saga ends –
In September 1980, Khomeini lays down four conditions for the hostages’
release: restitution of the shah’s fortune, unfreezing of Iranian assets in
the US, cancelling of US demands for compensation and non-interference in
Iranian affairs.
Mediation by Algerian diplomats obtains on January 19, 1981, a US-Iran
accord on the hostages’ liberation. The 52 are freed on January 20, the same
day Ronald Reagan is inaugurated president.
The embassy becomes a museum to expose US “crimes” against Iran.