Iran's announcement that it intends to put two British Embassy employees on trial is nothing more than a return to the hostage-taking tactics of the 1980s that resulted in the abduction of Terry Waite and John McCarthy.

In the thirty years since the ayatollahs seized power in Tehran, taking hostages has become a familiar tactic whenever the Islamic regime feels itself under threat. Mr Waite and Mr McCarthy were among dozens of Westerners kidnapped in Lebanon by Iranian-backed militias to force the US and its allies not to interfere in the country's civil war.

More recently Iran's Revolutionary Guards abducted fifteen British military personnel when they were patrolling international waters between Iraq and Iran in April 2007. At the time British forces in southern Iraq were involved in a fierce battle against Iranian-backed militias.