Died: March 16, 2021. IT was the moment, Charles Moore recollects in the first volume of his biography of Margaret Thatcher, when the SAS, previously relatively little known, became a household word for heroism. On May 5, 1980, teams from 22 SAS stormed the Iranian embassy in Princes Gate, in South Kensington, London, dramatically ending a siege that had begun on April 30 when six heavily-armed terrorists had taken 26 people hostage. The gunmen had demanded the release of 91 Arabs imprisoned in Khuzestan, a region in southern Iran for whose independence they claimed to be fighting. They threatened to blow up the embassy if their demands were not met by noon the following day. Police closed off the area and took over neighbouring buildings.