From Europe News:
The Quds force man who inspired the British embassy outrage in Tehran
Telegraph 5 December 2011
By Con Coughlin
His is not a face familiar to many in the West. But members of the rampaging Iranian mob which last week laid siege to the British Embassy in Tehran knew exactly what they were doing when they held aloft a picture of a grey-haired man, with downturned mouth and his beard more neatly trimmed than those of his country's religious leaders.
Qassem Suleimani, a fanatical Islamic revolutionary, has rapidly become one of the world's top terrorist suspects, as well as a powerful and sinister force within Iran.
The crowd of enraged student protesters who chanted "Death to Britain" as they terrorised a beleaguered group of British diplomats, know him as the head of Iran's feared Quds Force, the 15,000-strong paramilitary wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and a primary suspect for organising the assault on the embassy.
There were frightening moments at the height of the violence on Tuesday afternoon when it appeared that a rerun might be on the cards of the American embassy siege in 1979, when 50 American diplomatic staff were held hostage for 444 days.
If so, it would have been a triumph for Suleimani, who would have made common cause with the hardliners of 1979 who opposed the deal which eventually led to the release of the Americans.
Now that Dominick Chilcott, Britain's ambassador to Iran, and the rest of the British delegation and their families are safely back in Britain, the details of the full horror of last week's assault can be told. And there can be no doubt that the beleaguered group of British diplomats and their staff have had a very lucky escape indeed.
At the height of the violence on Tuesday afternoon Mr Chilcott, a Foreign Office high flyer who had been in Iran barely a month, was obliged to hide in an upstairs room while protesters destroyed portraits of British monarchs and scrawled graffiti on the walls downstairs.
He said: "We could hear them trying to smash the doors and buildings down below," after British security officials staged an emergency evacuation of all the embassy staff. (...)
Posted December 5th, 2011 by pk
The Quds force man who inspired the British embassy outrage in Tehran
Telegraph 5 December 2011
By Con Coughlin
His is not a face familiar to many in the West. But members of the rampaging Iranian mob which last week laid siege to the British Embassy in Tehran knew exactly what they were doing when they held aloft a picture of a grey-haired man, with downturned mouth and his beard more neatly trimmed than those of his country's religious leaders.
Qassem Suleimani, a fanatical Islamic revolutionary, has rapidly become one of the world's top terrorist suspects, as well as a powerful and sinister force within Iran.
The crowd of enraged student protesters who chanted "Death to Britain" as they terrorised a beleaguered group of British diplomats, know him as the head of Iran's feared Quds Force, the 15,000-strong paramilitary wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and a primary suspect for organising the assault on the embassy.
There were frightening moments at the height of the violence on Tuesday afternoon when it appeared that a rerun might be on the cards of the American embassy siege in 1979, when 50 American diplomatic staff were held hostage for 444 days.
If so, it would have been a triumph for Suleimani, who would have made common cause with the hardliners of 1979 who opposed the deal which eventually led to the release of the Americans.
Now that Dominick Chilcott, Britain's ambassador to Iran, and the rest of the British delegation and their families are safely back in Britain, the details of the full horror of last week's assault can be told. And there can be no doubt that the beleaguered group of British diplomats and their staff have had a very lucky escape indeed.
At the height of the violence on Tuesday afternoon Mr Chilcott, a Foreign Office high flyer who had been in Iran barely a month, was obliged to hide in an upstairs room while protesters destroyed portraits of British monarchs and scrawled graffiti on the walls downstairs.
He said: "We could hear them trying to smash the doors and buildings down below," after British security officials staged an emergency evacuation of all the embassy staff. (...)
Posted December 5th, 2011 by pk
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