On November 5, 1979, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and captured American hostages. This moment is well-known, documented and discussed by many, but what is less known or rather forgotten is that 16 days after it, on November 20, 1979, Islamic students stormed the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.

What started as a small riot with people shouting the anti-American slogans later grew into a full-scaled attack on the U.S. embassy’s compound. Although, at first glance it seemed as a small protest outside the embassy’s walls, in a little while, buses started pulling up in front of the main gates and hundreds people began climbing over walls and even trying to pull them down using ropes. And when a bullet fired at the gate’s lock by one rioter ricocheted and struck protesters, (according to an investigation) they opened fire falsely believing that Americans fired first. Twenty-year-old Marine Stephen Crowley was struck by a bullet and transported to the embassy’s secure communication vault the rest of personnel serving in the embassy. Locked behind steel-reinforced doors they started waiting for help to come and rescue them from a smoke-filled building.

Two days later, The New York Times published an article titled “Troops Rescue 100 in Islamabad; U.S. Offices Are Burned in 2 Cities”. The article mentions Jody Powell, the White House press secretary at that time who said that the administration appreciates action taken by the Pakistani forces in bringing about the dramatic escape of the 100 people besieged for five hours in the embassy chancery.

In that action: “The Government troops who finally ended the siege had to land on the roof by helicopter, rout the attackers and then assist the embassy personnel onto the roof, down to a lower level of the building and finally to the ground”

This is how official sources presented the story to the public; however, it was “slightly’ incorrect version. The eyewitness accounts described in a book “Ghost Wars” by Steve Cole tell a completely different version of this event. A helicopter that was supposed to flew over embassy and dispatch troops on the embassy roof indeed flew over it at 4 pm…never touching or landing troops on it. The Pakistani authorities argued later that a smoke was too thick to assess the situation. The American sources indicated that the crew decided that the fire was very hot and no American would survive it. Therefore, there was no need to rescue anybody but rather let “the riot to burn itself out”. (S.Coll, p.32)

At around 6:30 pm, the noise outside the secure vault began to drift off and U.S. Marines alongside with some civilian personnel decided to check out the situation. At that moment, the riot was over and only the flames of fire were continuing to burn buildings on the territory of the embassy.
“Using bicycle racks stacked end to end, the Marines set up makeshift ladders and led the large group huddled in the vault to safety. …Some Pakistani army troops had finally arrived. They were standing around inside the compound, mostly watching.”(S.Coll, p.34)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 at 3:13 pm and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.