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Iranian protesters stormed two
British Embassy compounds in
Tehran Tuesday, smashing
windows, hurling petrol bombs
and burning the British flag
during a rally to protest against
sanctions imposed by Britain,
live Iranian television
showed.The attacks followed
the rapid approval by Iran's
Guardian Council of a
parliamentary bill compelling the
government to expel the British
ambassador in retaliation for
the sanctions, and warnings
from a lawmaker that angry
Iranians could storm the British
embassy as they did to the U.S.
mission in 1979.Several dozen
protesters broke away from a
crowd of a few hundred
protesters outside the main
embassy compound in
downtown Tehran, scaled the
embassy gates and went inside.
Iranian security forces appeared
to do little to stop them.The
semi-official Mehr news agency
said protesters pulled down the
British flag, burned it, and put
up the Iranian flag.Inside, the
demonstrators threw stones
and petrol bombs. One waved a
framed picture of Queen
Elizabeth, state TV showed.The
British Foreign Office said it was
outraged by the incursion into
embassy.It was not clear if
British diplomats had been
caught up in the action, or had
been harmed. Embassy staff fled
protesters "by the back door,"
the Mehr news agency
said.Demonstrators waved flags
symbolizing martyrdom and
held up portraits of Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.A separate group of
protesters broke into a second
British embassy compound in
the north of the city, the IRNA
state news agency said, and
seized "classified
documents."Riot police later
moved in and mounted the
embassy gates, helping
protesters climb back on the
street outside, television
pictures showed, and began to
slowly clear demonstrators.The
incident followed Britain's
imposition of new sanctions on
the Islamic state last week over
its nuclear program.London
banned all British financial
institutions from doing business
with their Iranian counterparts,
including the Central Bank of
Iran, as part of a new wave of
sanctions by Western
countries.In London, Foreign
Secretary William Hague said
Britain expected other countries
to follow its lead in imposing
financial sanctions on Iran and
will take "robust" action if
Tehran reduces their diplomatic
relations.Hague was speaking in
a parliamentary debate as news
broke of the incident in Tehran
but he made no comment on it.