ABSTRACT
The spectrum of hostage situations, therefore, can be broad and at one end benign and innocent, where at the other end it can be deadly dangerous to the hostages, hostage takers, and those trying to intervene and bring the situation to a hoped for peaceful resolution. The hostage takers were four members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) that made up an Active Service Unit (ASU), sent to Britain by the IRA's General Headquarters. Chief Superintendent Jim Nevill and Superintendent Peter Imbert had been searching for the IRA men for the preceding fourteen months, having spent that time repeatedly sifting through the debris of numerous bomb sites and the remains of the human tragedies created by the fiendish handiwork of the several Irishmen. On the micro scale, the ASU were playing a catch-me-if-you-can routine with the Met's bomb squad, who had almost nothing to go on in terms of who they were going after.
