Protesters Ransack Saudi Embassy With Fire Bombs After Execution of Nonviolent Cleric

The cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, was a driving force of the protests that broke out in 2011 in the Sunni-ruled kingdom’s east, where the Shiite minority complains of marginalisation.

At Sunday’s press conference in Riyadh, Jubeir said the Saudi diplomatic representative had sought help from the Iranian foreign ministry when the building was stormed, but the requests were ignored three times.

Hours later, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said 40 people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in the embassy attack and investigators were pursuing other suspects, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry said the storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran in the early hours of Sunday was being used as a pretext to escalate the crisis.

Despite the focus on Nimr, the executions seemed mostly aimed at discouraging jihadism in Saudi Arabia, where dozens have died in the past year in attacks by Sunni militants.

Nimr, who was about 56, was a Shi’ite cleric from eastern Saudi Arabia who often criticized the Saudi royal family and called for Shi’ite empowerment.

Saudi Arabia made clear that its concerns about USA dismay over the weekend’s events were minor compared with its belief that the West was kowtowing to Shiite Iran on a range of issues.

Amnesty International said the case against him was part of a systematic effort by the majority Sunni government to crush Shia voices.

“We have discussed with the authorities in Riyadh, and expect that Ali Al-Nimr and others who were convicted as juveniles will not be executed”.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are already bitter rivals.

In July, 1987, tens of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrim demonstrators took to the street after the Hajj in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

The conflict has spilled into other countries, as the two back opposing sides in civil wars in Yemen and in Syria, and each accuses the other of supporting terrorist acts.

Although Saudi Arabia and the United States have long found common cause in antiterrorism campaigns and in promoting regional stability, strains have emerged regularly since the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks. British reporter Frank Gardner, now the BBC’s security correspondent, was seriously wounded in the attack and paralyzed, but survived. Some were beheaded, others were shot by firing squad.

Leading English-language daily Saudi Gazette led its home news section with an article describing the executions as an “Iron fist against terror”.

Iran says at least 464 of its pilgrims were killed and blames Saudi Arabia’s “incompetence” for the deaths.

Al-Abadi tweeted Saturday night that he was “shocked and saddened” by al-Nimr’s execution, adding that “peaceful opposition is a fundamental right”. The mass executions Friday were the highest single-day total since 1980, according to Human Rights Watch.

Hussein, a Jordanian prince, also questioned whether due process had been observed during the men’s trials.

“We are particularly concerned that the execution of (al-Nimr) risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced”, spokesman John Kirby said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was “deeply dismayed” by the executions and called again for an end to the death penalty. His sermons were in colloquial rather than classical Arabic and his support base was largely among alienated youth in Al Awamiyah, a village in the Eastern Province surrounded by date farms and notorious for its militancy.