The enduring stain of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis

Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days after students and militants took over the US Embassy in support of the Iranian Revolution. (Getty Images)
Updated 08 November 2019
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The enduring stain of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis

  • Forty years ago on Nov. 4, a mob of Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran
  • The consequences of the 1979 events reverberate to this day across the Middle East

DUBAI: Forty years ago, a mob of Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and took dozens of staff members hostage. On Monday, demonstrators chanting “Down with USA” and “Death to America” gathered in front of the same building as state TV aired videos of rallies in other Iranian cities.

Many of the ugly sentiments from 1979 remain today amid renewed tensions between the two countries, following the unraveling of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal and the re-imposition of US sanctions on the Iranian economy.
“Thanks to God, today the revolution’s seedlings have evolved into a fruitful and huge tree. Its shadow has covered the entire Middle East,” said Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, the commander of the Iranian army, in what was a clear allusion to the “crescent of power” that today stretches from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.
There is no denying that 40 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s “shadow” covers large expanses of the Middle East. It has expanded since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. But to those living under Iran’s shadow, the “fruitful and huge tree” stands for a combination of religious fundamentalism, cross-border terrorism, domestic repression and foreign meddling.
Currently, Iraq and Lebanon are witnessing massive anti-government demonstrations. While those protests are fueled by local grievances and mainly directed at political elites, they pose a clear danger to Iran, which backs both governments and powerful militias in each country.
“Although many originally came out over issues of jobs, the cost of living and failing services, the protests evolved into an existential confrontation with the agents of Iran and their malign impact on society,” wrote political commentator Baria Alamuddin for Arab News.
If there is a specific date for the beginning of Iran’s “malign impact,” it is arguably Nov. 4, 1979.

The assault that day on the US Embassy in Tehran was the culmination of protests by supporters of the revolution, demanding the extradition of the shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who was in the US receiving treatment for cancer.
According to an AP report from the time, “a mob of Iranian students overran US Marine guards in a three-hour struggle Sunday and invaded the American Embassy in Tehran, seizing dozens of staff members as hostages, Tehran Radio reported.” After seven days, the women and African-Americans were freed.
In April 1980, US President Jimmy Carter cut diplomatic ties with Iran, imposed more sanctions and ordered all Iranian diplomats to leave the US. The same month, a failed US mission to rescue the hostages resulted in several deaths, including eight US soldiers.
Finally, on Jan. 20, 1981, after secret negotiations that resulted in the signing of an agreement to free Iranian assets, the remaining 52 Americans were flown to Wiesbaden air base in Germany.
The hostage-taking marked the moment US-Iranian relations began deteriorating sharply.

Under the shah, relations were good as Iran was more or less Washington’s main strategic ally in the region, having a status equivalent to, if not higher than, Israel.
The release of the hostages signaled the end of a traumatic chapter in US diplomatic history, but for Arab countries of the Middle East, it marked the beginning of an era of terrorism, sectarianism and conflicts that continue to this day.
A demonstration on Monday outside the Iranian consulate in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala saw protestors spray-painting “Karbala is free, Iran out!” on walls. Posters of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been burnt — the protests have cost the lives of more than 250 people.
In Lebanon, a movement against corruption and the official confessional system has paralyzed the country for three weeks. Along with demands for a non-sectarian government, protesters have aimed anger at Tehran. “Iran wants to close its ears as it has caused poverty, militia dominance in other countries and government failure. The truth is that the accusations match reality,” wrote Arab News columnist Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed on Oct. 31.
In retrospect, the hostage crisis came as a major shock to the West. US intelligence had failed to anticipate it or the revolution. The consequences of that reverberate to this day across the Middle East. Attacking diplomatic posts remains an Iranian tactic. A mob stormed the UK Embassy in Tehran in 2011, while Saudi Arabian diplomatic posts were attacked in 2016.

FORTY YEARS OF ANIMOSITY

1979 - The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, forced to leave country on Jan. 16 after months of protests and strikes.

1979 - US diplomats and citizens taken hostage after Iranian students seize US Embassy on Nov. 4 in Tehran in violation of Vienna Convention, demanding return of the shah to stand trial.

1980 - US cuts diplomatic ties with Iran, seizes Iranian assets and restricts trade with the Islamic Republic. Failed US mission on April 24 to rescue the hostages results in several deaths.

1981 - On Jan. 20, 52 US hostages freed after spending 444 days in captivity as part of a “final complete agreement.”

1984 - Iran listed by the administration of US President Ronald Reagan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

1985-86 - Iran-Contra scandal sheds light on secret deal during Reagan’s presidency to ship weapons to Iran in exchange for help in freeing US hostages held by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

1988 - Mistaking an Airbus A300 for a fighter jet, warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air flight in the Gulf on July 3, killing all 290 on board.

2002 - Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, branded “axis of evil” by US President George W. Bush.

2002 - Iran accused by US of having a clandestine nuclear weapons program after opposition group reveals details of uranium enrichment facilities.

2012 - New law allows US President Barack Obama to sanction foreign banks if they fail to reduce their Iranian oil imports.

2013 - Obama speaks by phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in September. 2015 - Iran signs deal — called JCPOA — with world powers, including the US, to limit its nuclear activities and allow international inspectors.

2016 - US lifts nuclear-related sanctions on Iran.

2018 - US President Donald Trump abandons nuclear deal and reinstates sanctions against Iran and countries that trade with it.

2019 - In April, US designates Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Additional sanctions imposed in May.

2019 - Iran shoots down US military drone over Strait of Hormuz on June 20.

2019 - Iranian demonstrators mark 40th anniversary of hostage crisis with slogans of “Down with USA” and “Death to America” in front of the former US Embassy in Tehran.


Charity says 400,000 children in Syria risk ‘severe malnutrition’ after US cuts

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Charity says 400,000 children in Syria risk ‘severe malnutrition’ after US cuts

  • More than 13 years of conflict in Syria ravaged the country, with the health system shattered and infrastructure hobbled

DAMASCUS: Save the Children said on Wednesday that more than 400,000 children in the Syrian Arab Republic were at risk of “severe malnutrition” after the US suspended aid, forcing the charity to slash operations in the country.

Bujar Hoxha, Save the Children’s Syria director, in a statement called on the international community to urgently fill the funding gap, warning that needs were “higher than ever” after years of war and economic collapse.

“More than 416,000 children in Syria are now at significant risk of severe malnutrition following the sudden suspension of foreign aid,” Save the Children said in a statement, adding separately that the cuts were those of the US.

The global aid situation has grown dire since US President Donald Trump ordered the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development early this year.

His administration scrapped 83 percent of humanitarian programs funded by USAID.

The agency had an annual budget of $42.8 billion, representing 42 percent of total global humanitarian aid.

The suspension has “forced the closure of one third of Save the Children’s life-saving nutrition activities” across Syria, the charity said, halting “vital care for over 40,500 children” aged under five.

Hoxha said the closure of the charity’s nutrition centers “comes at the worst possible time” with “the needs in Syria are higher than ever.”

Its clinics that are still open are “reporting a surge in malnutrition cases while struggling to keep up with the growing demand for care,” the charity added.

More than 13 years of conflict in Syria ravaged the country, with the health system shattered and infrastructure hobbled.

In February, a United Nations Development Programme report estimated that nine out of 10 Syrians now live in poverty and face food insecurity with “malnutrition on the rise, particularly among children.”

Save the Children said more than 650,000 children under five in Syria were now “chronically malnourished,” while more than 7.5 million children nationwide needed humanitarian assistance, which it said was the highest number since the crisis began.

Hoxha urged the international community to “urgently step up” to fill the funding gap.

Syrian children “are paying the price for decisions made thousands of miles away,” Hoxha added in the statement.


How falling cases of tuberculosis in Iraq reflect a wider health system recovery

Updated 9 min 40 sec ago
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How falling cases of tuberculosis in Iraq reflect a wider health system recovery

  • Iraq has halved its tuberculosis rate over the past decade through tech-driven diagnosis and expanded mobile health services
  • AI-supported X-rays and GeneXpert machines now detect TB faster, even in remote areas and among high-risk populations

DUBAI: Sameer Abbas Mohamed, a Syrian refugee from Qamishli who fled to Iraq in 2013, was terrified when his one-year-old son, Yusuf, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He knew the disease was life-threatening — and highly contagious.

“I have two older boys, and I was scared they would catch the disease,” said Mohamed, who lives in Qushtapa refugee camp for Syrians in Irbil, home to most of the 300,000 Syrian refugees in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

“Yusuf was also very young and I worried about losing him.”

An IOM medic checks a little girl at the family's rented house in Kirkuk. (Photo: Anjam Rasool/IOM Iraq, 2019)

Mohamed consulted several doctors when Yusuf began coughing. Scans revealed a mass on the right anterior wall of his chest. A diagnosis was finally made when a general surgeon reported the case to Iraq’s National TB Program.

Following surgery to remove the mass, Yusuf returned home, where nurses delivered an all-oral regimen, monitored his treatment, tracked his progress, offered support, and educated the family on isolation measures to prevent the disease’s spread.

Within six months, Yusuf was cured.

His journey reflects the progress made in combating TB in Iraq, especially the drug-resistant variant that has emerged in the conflict-affected country — which until recently had the region’s highest prevalence of TB cases.

Iraq’s NTP, supported by the International Organization for Migration, the Global Fund, and the World Health Organization, is tracking TB among displaced communities using advanced diagnostic technologies and artificial intelligence.

Giorgi Gigauri, IOM Iraq’s chief of mission, told Arab News that TB detection and timely treatment have helped to drive a significant decline in cases in Iraq.

This was achieved, he said, through a tech-driven strategy, including the installation of the advanced 10-color GeneXpert detection machine across Baghdad, Basrah, Najaf and Nineveh, enabling faster diagnoses.

IOM’s mobile medical teams were also equipped with 10 AI-supported chest X-ray devices, known as CAD4-TB, which can detect the disease in seconds — even in high-burden areas such as refugee camps and prisons.

FAST FACTS

• TB is caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium that primarily affects the lungs.

• It spreads through airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

• Symptoms include a persistent cough, chest pain, fever, night sweats and weight loss.

• With proper treatment using antibiotics, TB is curable, though drug-resistant strains exist.

Routine screenings by these mobile units helped to increase the detection rate of drug-resistant TB from 2 percent to 19 percent, and drug-sensitive TB from 4 percent to 14 percent between 2019 and 2024, according to IOM data.

After screening, sputum samples are taken to central labs, making testing accessible for those unable to travel or living in areas with limited health care access.

Thanks to these efforts, TB cases in Iraq have fallen dramatically — from 45 to 23 cases per 100,000 people between 2013 and 2023. The current prevalence is 15 per 100,000, with an estimated mortality rate of three per 100,000.

In many ways, these numbers reflect Iraq’s wider public health recovery after decades of instability, including the crippling sanctions of the 1990s, the successive bouts of violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion, and the 2014 rise of Daesh.

“Despite years of instability, progress made in the detection, treatment and prevention of the spread of TB restored trust in health care services by strengthening infrastructure and extending care to vulnerable groups like prisoners and displaced populations,” Gigauri told Arab News.

“It also supports upskilling of health professions and creates sustainable systems that can support responses to other communicable diseases.

“Efforts made by all partners under NTP have contributed to national recovery by addressing urgent health needs and laying a foundation for timely detection of preventable and treatable diseases.”

Despite a period of relative stability, Iraq still faces considerable humanitarian pressures amid a fragile economy and an unpredictable security landscape. According to UNHCR, more than 1 million Iraqis remain internally displaced, with 115,000 living in 21 camps across the Kurdistan Region.

Roughly five million displaced people have returned to their towns and villages since Daesh’s territorial defeat in 2017. But these areas often lack basic infrastructure, increasing the risk of TB outbreaks.

In Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city, which endured three years under Daesh — those unable to afford housing live in overcrowded settlements, where malnutrition and exposure to the elements weaken immunity.

The mobile medical teams have been a game-changer for these vulnerable communities.

Digital X-rays equipped with CAD4-TB, powered by AI, now enable quick and accurate TB detection — a stark improvement from the three-month wait many patients once faced for CT scans.

This technology also reduces radiation exposure. A single CT scan can expose patients to the equivalent of 300 X-rays, according to Dr. Bashar Hashim Abbas, manager of the Chest and Respiratory Diseases clinic in Mosul.

Abbas said that mobile medical teams and digital X-ray devices have been vital for reaching remote communities and detainees who lack clinic access.

“The mobility of these machines helped us examine prisoners who were difficult to bring into the clinic due to complex security protocols. We discovered many cases, especially multidrug-resistant TB patients, in this way,” Abbas told Arab News.

“We conduct X-rays and take sputum samples for further lab investigations. Therefore, we take the diagnostic tools to them as much as we can, scaling up TB prevention and providing treatment.”

A centralized disease surveillance system, District Health Information Software 2, allows lab results to be registered and coordinated across labs, facilities, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, improving routine TB reporting.

IOM’s TB services reached 6,398 people in 2024, with 120 drug-resistant TB cases treated. These efforts have been bolstered by $11 million in Global Fund support since 2022.

A key breakthrough has been shifting the treatment of multidrug-resistant TB from a burdensome series of injections to a simpler, all-oral regimen, which shortened recovery time from two years to six months and significantly improved outcomes.

“Previously, treatments involved daily injections for at least six to eight months, which were difficult to sustain for patients and treatment outcomes were relatively poor at 50 percent,” Grania Brigden, senior TB adviser at the Global Fund, told Arab News.

“However, the innovation in treatment through the all-oral regimen has reduced treatment to six months with a 75 percent to 80 percent success rate.”

Although no new TB vaccines are currently available, researchers are optimistic about developing more effective ones in the next five years. The existing BCG vaccine offers only partial protection and is less effective for adults and adolescents, who are more prone to transmission.

New vaccines are vital for achieving the WHO’s End TB Strategy goals — reducing TB mortality by 95 percent and incidence by 90 percent by 2035. Brigden said ongoing investment is key to meeting these targets.

Meanwhile, the Global Fund is focused on halting TB’s spread in Iraq. “We have invested significantly in commodity security to ensure that everyone who tests positive or is notified of TB is put on treatment,” said Brigden.

Thanks to these steps, many — like young Yusuf — are alive today who might otherwise have succumbed without proper care.

“The discussions of tuberculosis we had with the nurse who gave the medication had a positive impact on us,” said Yusuf’s father, Mohamed.

“The nurse gave us information on how to isolate him after the first two to three weeks. He reassured us that if we gave him the medication regularly and made sure there were no gaps, everything would be getting well.

“This made us less scared.”
 

 


Anxiety clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Updated 16 April 2025
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Anxiety clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

  • ‘There is a constant fear, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it’

ZABABDEH: In the mainly Christian Palestinian town of Zababdeh, the runup to Easter has been overshadowed by nearby Israeli military operations, which have proliferated in the occupied West Bank alongside the Gaza war.

This year unusually Easter falls on the same weekend for all of the town’s main Christian communities — Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican — and residents have attempted to busy themselves with holiday traditions like making date cakes or getting ready for the scout parade.

But their minds have been elsewhere.

Dozens of families from nearby Jenin have found refuge in Zababdeh from the continual Israeli military operations that have devastated the city and its adjacent refugee camp this year.

“The other day, the (Israeli) army entered Jenin, people were panicking, families were running to pick up their children,” said Zababdeh resident Janet Ghanam.

“There is a constant fear, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it,” the 57-year-old Anglican added, before rushing off to one of the last Lenten prayers before Easter.

Ghanam said her son had told her he would not be able to visit her for Easter this year, for fear of being stuck at the Israeli military roadblocks that have mushroomed across the territory.

Zababdeh looks idyllic, nestled in the hills of the northern West Bank, but the roar of Israeli air force jets sometimes drowns out the sound of its church bells.

“It led to a lot of people to think: ‘Okay, am I going to stay in my home for the next five years?’” said Saleem Kasabreh, an Anglican deacon in the town.

“Would my home be taken away? Would they bomb my home?“

Kasabreh said this “existential threat” was compounded by constant “depression” at the news from Gaza, where the death toll from the Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 2023 attack now tops 51,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Zababdeh has been spared the devastation wreaked on Gaza, but the mayor’s office says nearly 450 townspeople lost their jobs in Israel when Palestinian work permits were rescinded after the Hamas attack.

“Israel had never completely closed us in the West Bank before this war,” said 73-year-old farmer Ibrahim Daoud. “Nobody knows what will happen.”

Many say they are stalked by the spectre of exile, with departures abroad fueling fears that Christians may disappear from the Holy Land.

“People can’t stay without work and life isn’t easy,” said 60-year-old math teacher Tareq Ibrahim.

Mayor Ghassan Daibes echoed his point.

“For a Christian community to survive, there must be stability, security and decent living conditions. It’s a reality, not a call for emigration,” he said.

“But I’m speaking from lived experience: Christians used to make up 30 percent of the population in Palestine; today, they are less than one percent.

“And this number keeps decreasing. In my own family, I have three brothers abroad — one in Germany, the other two in the United States.”

Catholic priest Elias Tabban adopted a more stoical attitude, insisting his congregation’s spirituality had never been so vibrant.

“Whenever the Church is in hard times... (that’s when) you see the faith is growing,” Tabban said.


Houthi media says US air strikes hit Sanaa

People inspect the site of a reported US airstrike in Sanaa, a day after the attack. (File/AFP)
Updated 16 April 2025
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Houthi media says US air strikes hit Sanaa

  • Houthi-held areas of Yemen have endured near-daily strikes, blamed on the United States, since Washington launched an air campaign against the militia on March 15

SANAA: Houthi media said more than a dozen air strikes hit the militia-held capital Sanaa on Wednesday, blaming them on the United States.
Houthi-held areas of Yemen have endured near-daily strikes, blamed on the United States, since Washington launched an air campaign against the militia on March 15 in an attempt to end their threats to shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
“Fourteen air strikes carried out by American aggression hit the Al-Hafa area in the Al-Sabeen district in the capital,” the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV reported.
It also reported strikes blamed on the United States in the Hazm area of Jawf province.
The US campaign followed Houthi threats to resume their attacks on international shipping over Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Since March 15, the Houthis have also resumed attacks targeting US military ships and Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthis began targeting ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as Israeli territory, after the Gaza war began in October 2023, later pausing their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire.
Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza at the beginning of March and resumed its offensive in the Palestinian territory on March 18, ending the truce.
The vital Red Sea route, connecting to the Suez Canal, normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, but the Houthi attacks forced many companies to make a long detour around the tip of southern Africa.


At least 8,000 missing in war-torn Sudan in 2024: Red Cross

Updated 16 April 2025
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At least 8,000 missing in war-torn Sudan in 2024: Red Cross

PORT SUDAN: At least 8,000 people were reported missing in war-ravaged Sudan in 2024, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday, adding that the figure is just “the tip of the iceberg.”
“These are just the cases we have collected directly,” Daniel O’Malley, head of the ICRC delegation in Sudan, told AFP. “We know this is just a small percentage — the tip of the iceberg — of the whole caseload of missing.”