Anal Iranian demonstrators hold anti-US and Israel slogans, a
cartoon of US President Barack Obama and a portrait of supreme terrorist leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the former US embassy in Tehran on November
2, 2012, during a rally to mark the 33rd anniversary of seizure of the US
embassy which saw Islamist students hold 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days.
Thousands of Iranians have gathered in Tehran,
setting US flags on fire and chanting “Death to America.”
The demonstration marks the 33rd anniversary of the taking of the US
embassy, in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
The demonstrators also shouted anti-British and anti-Israeli
slogans, and burnt Israeli flags in front of the former embassy building.
The premises are now controlled by Iran’s
elite Revolutionary Guards, and currently serve as a training and educational
facility. The building, which is covered in anti-US murals, was named a “den of
spies” by the authorities that sponsor the annual commemoration.
Remembering history
On November 4, 1979,
Islamist students calling themselves “Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s
Line” invaded the grounds of the US
embassy and seized its staff. Fifty-two US
diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.
After failed negotiation attempts, US President Jimmy Carter
ordered a rescue mission, which tragically ended in the deaths of eight
American servicemen and one Iranian civilian.
The hostages were finally released to the US
after the signing of the Algiers Accords which, among other provisions,
included a vow that Washington
would not interfere politically or militarily in Iranian internal affairs.
The motives for the hostage-taking date back to 1977, when
Carter angered Iranians by giving a televised toast to the country’s
then-leader, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, declaring how beloved he was by his
people. The move angered Iranians who did not support the shah.
Two years later, after the revolution and removal of the
shah in 1979, Carter once again angered Iranian citizens by allowing the shah
to go to the US
for medical treatment.
This intensified Iran’s
anti-American sentiment and sparked rumors of the reinstatement of Pahlavi and
another US-backed coup. The first coup occurred in 1953, when British and US
spy agencies helped Iranian royalists depose of the government of the country’s
prime minister and restore Pahlavi back to power.
Some political analysts believe the hostage crisis was a
prominent reason Carter lost the election in 1980.
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