Albania SAS Rescue Trapped British Diplomats is a story of how the Special Air Service (SAS Motto “Who Dares Wins”) rescued myself and two colleagues who were trapped in the British embassy in Tirana having been evacuated into the embassy on 12th September 12th 1998 as the country erupted into civil unrest and lawlessness. The boys from Hereford did good!
This was my first diplomatic posting and during the course of my career I took part in the evacuation of British nationals (and others) in a number of locations but on this occasion, I was the one being evacuated albeit from my residence to the embassy as a place of safety.
Scene Setter
This was a day I was not going to forget in a hurry. I had just under four months left before my tour ended and I had spent the previous day at work trawling through future job opportunities. The Ambassador was again out of the country and the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) was once more in charge. I should have known from previous experience and recent incidents that trouble always seemed to flare up when Ambassadors are away from post.
On this day, I awoke very early to the sounds of large explosions and the rattle of gunfire that seemed to be going off in all directions. What was going on? There had been no forewarning of trouble and things had been relatively quiet and stable in the city over the preceding weeks.
I tried to get hold of the DHM on my mobile phone but the network was down, always a bad sign. I immediately got on the embassy radio net and contacted her. She said that she had just heard from the German Embassy that a local high profile opposition politician, Azem Hajdari, had been assassinated outside the Parliament building and his Democratic Party (DP) supporters were on the warpath blaming the Socialist government party for the murder.
