Protesters in Iran, angered by the execution by Saudi Arabia
of a prominent Shiite cleric, broke into the Saudi embassy in Tehran early
Sunday, setting fires and throwing papers from the roof, Iranian media
reported.
The semiofficial ISNA news agency said the country's top
police official, Gen. Hossein Sajedinia, rushed to the scene and police worked
to disperse the crowd outraged by the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Shiite
leaders in Iran and other countries across the Middle East swiftly condemned
Riyadh and warned of sectarian backlash.
Saudi Arabia's execution Saturday of 47 prisoners, which
also included al-Qaida detainees, threatened to further enflame Sunni-Shiite
tensions in a regional struggle playing out between the Sunni kingdom and its
foe Iran, a predominantly Shiite nation.
While Saudi Arabia insisted the executions were part of a
justified war on terrorism, Iranian politicians warned that the Saudi monarchy
would pay a heavy price for the death of al-Nimr.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Saudi envoy in
Tehran to protest, while the Saudi Foreign Ministry later said it had summoned
Iran's envoy to the kingdom to protest the critical Iranian reaction to the
sheikh's execution, saying it represented "blatant interference" in
its internal affairs.
In Tehran, the crowd gathered outside the Saudi embassy and
chanted anti-Saudi slogans. Some protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails
at the embassy, setting off a fire in part of the building, Sajedinia told the
semi-official Tasnim news agency.
"Some of them entered the embassy. Currently,
individuals who entered the embassy have been transferred out (of the
building). However, a large crowd is still there in front of the embassy,"
Sajedinia told ISNA early Sunday.
Some of the protesters broke into the embassy and threw
papers off the roof, and police worked to disperse the crowd, Sajedinia told
ISNA. He later told Tasnim that police had removed the protesters from the
building and arrested some of them. He said the situation outside the embassy
"had been defused."
Source: AP
Source: AP
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