Call to British Airways might have averted 1990 Kuwait hostage crisis

Ambassador warned Foreign Office an Iraqi invasion was under way but this was not passed on to airline

Hundreds of British passengers might have avoided being taken hostage by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1990 if a UK diplomatic call informing Whitehall of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been relayed to British Airways, the Foreign Office has disclosed.

New papers revealed under the 20-year-rule show that the UK ambassador to Kuwait rang the Foreign Office duty clerk to warn him that an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was under way. The message was then passed around Whitehall, including to Downing Street and the intelligence services.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ZfEWON