SAUDI warplanes have been accused of “deliberately” striking Iran’s embassy in Yemen in an air raid that wounded staff, as Iran banned all Saudi Arabian imports.
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“The coalition command confirmed that these (Iranian) allegations are false and void, stressing that it does not carry out any operations in the vicinity of the embassy or near it”, a statement on the state Saudi news agency SPA said late on Thursday.
One of the executions – that of a Shiite cleric and political dissident named Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr – outraged Iranian leaders, who condemned the act and participated in protests throughout the region.
Despite months of air strikes and a ground campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, the Iranian-allied Houthis remain in control of Sanaa and other areas of the country.
A spokesperson for the Saudi-led Sunni coalition conducting a military intervention in Yemen against anti-government Shia rebels known as the Houthis said there would be an investigation. However, an Associated Press reporter who reached the site just after the announcement saw no damage to the building, which sits in a neighborhood near a presidential palace that’s seen many previous strikes.
Saudi Arabia gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the country.
Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran on Sunday after crowds of protesters attacked two of its diplomatic posts in Iran.
In eastern Saudi Arabia, the home of al-Nimr and much of the kingdom’s roughly 10 to 15 percent Shiite population, Shiites held a memorial service for the cleric Thursday night. “Saudi Arabia is a regional power, the only Arab country in the G20”. He was accused of “seeking foreign meddling” and taking up arms against Saudi Arabia. Al-Nimr’s brother, as well as another local resident of al-Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia, said they’ve heard gunfire on recent nights.
Bahrain and Sudan followed Saudi Arabia in cutting diplomatic ties, while the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait withdrew their ambassadors.
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Also Wednesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani wrote a letter to Iran’s head of Judiciary-calling for an urgent investigation into the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic missions, saying the perpetrators must be “brought to justice”.
