Iranians seize U.S. mission, ask Shah’s return for trial
Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 4:37 pmTEHRAN, Nov. 4, 1979 -- Several hundred Iranian students today stormed and occupied the U.S. Embassy in central Tehran taking as many as 100 hostages, including diplomatic staff, Marine guards and local Iranian employes in an assault that appears to have left the government temporarily paralyzed.
The students, mostly in their early twenties, said in a press conference after the occupation that they would continue to hold the embassy staff until the United States agreed to send exiled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi back to Iran for trial.
The shah has been hospitalized in New York since Oct. 22 undergoing treatment for cancer.
Spokesmen for the students appeared to have no clue what action would be taken if the U.S. government declined, saying only that it would conform with the wishes of the people.
The assault on the embassy came at about midday after hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through the capital in demonstrations commemorating students shot dead by the shah’s troops on Tehran University campus at this time last year.
About 400 students forced the gates of the embassy and scaled the compound walls in what was a largely nonviolent occupation.
The attacking force included a small group that was heavily armed, according to Iranian eyewitnesses, but no weapons were carried by the students, male and female, who later controlled the embassy compound.Many of them wore large pictures of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pinned to their chests.
A small group of U.S. Marine guards fired tear gas at the students as they broke into the compound but failed to check them as they rushed the embassy buildings.
Embassy officials destroyed sensitive files during the attack, according to the students, who produced charred remains of documents for inspection by the press.
They said they found other documents relating to events in Kurdistan and oil-rich Khuzestan, two provinces in which there has been bitter fighting since the revolution between security forces and dissident ethnic minority groups. They declined, however, to identify the contents of the documents.
The attack was completed quickly, but throughout the day and late into the night, hundreds stood outside the embassy compound chanting anti-American slogans.
“Khomeini struggles, Carter trembles,” they shouted along with more familiar cries of “Death to America” and “America is the number one enemy.”
A mock gallows was produced from which a poster dangled, reading, “for the shah” while other demonstrators burned banners condemning U.S. imperialism.
The students declined and the government was unable to specify the number of embassy staff held, but reports by the official Pars news agency quoted their reporter as saying there were 33 men and five women. Other estimates put the total at 50 or 80.
The students, mostly in their early twenties, said in a press conference after the occupation that they would continue to hold the embassy staff until the United States agreed to send exiled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi back to Iran for trial.
The shah has been hospitalized in New York since Oct. 22 undergoing treatment for cancer.
Spokesmen for the students appeared to have no clue what action would be taken if the U.S. government declined, saying only that it would conform with the wishes of the people.
The assault on the embassy came at about midday after hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through the capital in demonstrations commemorating students shot dead by the shah’s troops on Tehran University campus at this time last year.
About 400 students forced the gates of the embassy and scaled the compound walls in what was a largely nonviolent occupation.
The attacking force included a small group that was heavily armed, according to Iranian eyewitnesses, but no weapons were carried by the students, male and female, who later controlled the embassy compound.Many of them wore large pictures of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pinned to their chests.
A small group of U.S. Marine guards fired tear gas at the students as they broke into the compound but failed to check them as they rushed the embassy buildings.
Embassy officials destroyed sensitive files during the attack, according to the students, who produced charred remains of documents for inspection by the press.
They said they found other documents relating to events in Kurdistan and oil-rich Khuzestan, two provinces in which there has been bitter fighting since the revolution between security forces and dissident ethnic minority groups. They declined, however, to identify the contents of the documents.
The attack was completed quickly, but throughout the day and late into the night, hundreds stood outside the embassy compound chanting anti-American slogans.
“Khomeini struggles, Carter trembles,” they shouted along with more familiar cries of “Death to America” and “America is the number one enemy.”
A mock gallows was produced from which a poster dangled, reading, “for the shah” while other demonstrators burned banners condemning U.S. imperialism.
The students declined and the government was unable to specify the number of embassy staff held, but reports by the official Pars news agency quoted their reporter as saying there were 33 men and five women. Other estimates put the total at 50 or 80.