Saudi Arabia Cuts Diplomatic Ties with Iran After Embassy Attack

Saudi Arabia Cuts Diplomatic Ties with Iran After Embassy Attack

Saudi Arabia yesterday said it had broken off diplomatic ties with Iran, amid a row over the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir spoke after demonstrators stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran on Saturday, reported the BBC.
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 others were executed on Saturday after Saudi Arabia found them guilty of “terrorism”.

Jubeir said all Iranian diplomats must leave Saudi Arabia within 48 hours.

The execution of the Shiite cleric in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia laid bare the divisions now gripping the Middle East, as protesters set fire to the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran and demonstrators took to the streets from Bahrain to Pakistan.
The mass execution of the sheikh along with 46 others — the largest carried out by Saudi Arabia in three and a half decades — illustrated the kingdom’s new aggressiveness under King Salman.
During his reign, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen and staunchly opposed regional Shiite power Iran, even as Tehran struck a nuclear deal with world powers.

Iran’s top leader warned Saudi Arabia yesterday of “divine revenge” over Sheikh al-Nimr’s death, while Riyadh accused Tehran of supporting terrorism in a war of words that threatened to escalate even as the US and the European Union sought to calm the region.
Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran on Saturday after Saudi Arabia executed the outspoken cleric who had criticised the kingdom’s treatment of its Shia minority.
The execution drew condemnation from Iran and its allies in the region, sparking fears that sectarian tensions could rise across the Middle East.

The executions coincided with increased attacks in Saudi Arabia by the jihadists of the Islamic State and an escalating rivalry between the Sunni monarchy and Shiite Iran that is playing out in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. Sheikh al-Nimr was an outspoken critic of the Saudi monarchy and was adopted as a symbolic leader by Shiite protesters in several Persian Gulf countries during the Arab Spring uprisings.
Saudi officials said the mass execution was aimed at deterring violence against the state. But analysts said that the grouping of Sheikh Nimr with hardened jihadists was a warning to domestic dissidents that could ripple across the region.