Iranian Students Ransack British Embassy

In a move that has haunting echoes for Americans,a crowd of Iranian students rushed the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday evening,vandalising the premises and terrorising diplomats and their families.Unable to break the lock on the compound's iron gate,the activists just climbed over it.Once inside,they trashed documents and set fires,burning the Union Jack and raising a Shiite banner.Chanting "Death to England,"they took hostages,whom they later released.
A British residential compound was stormed in the fracas.Iranian security forces did little to stop the intruders.The British Foreign Office expressed outrage and condemned the incident.The student mob was linked to the Basij plainclothes militia.
The U.K. has recently joined Canada and the U.S. in imposing sanctions on Iranian banks to thwart Iran's suspected nuclear weapons development programme.
In 1979,a similar group of students attacked the U.S. Embassy in Tehran,seizing dozens of American hostages and holding them for 444 days.March 2007 saw the Iranians seize 15 British Sailors and Marines,accusing them of violating Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf,which the U.K. denied.They were released after two tense weeks in captivity.