While Shiite leaders hit out at Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain’s Sunni rulers defended their ally, saying the executions were necessary to confront extremism.
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Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for southern and eastern parts of Missouri, including St. The affected areas could receive more than eight inches of snow, the agency said, with possible snowdrifts higher than six feet.
Rouhani blamed “extremist individuals” for the attacks, which targeted the Saudi embassy in Tehran and consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad in response to Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
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Evacuations in Missouri are becoming increasingly urgent as levees have been overtopped in West Alton, just north of St. Founders of the Basehunters storm chasing team were able to capture a rare massive night time tornado chase on video .
The main stories on its online homepage describe global outrage over the killings as “defending terror acts”, while the editorial says: “For Saudi Arabia, it is a matter of sovereignty and no country should interfere in the kingdom’s internal affairs”.
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Few communications from Emanuel’s staff mention him directly though several refer to him by the acronym “MRE”. And on Friday, the news release said that the department is expanding the use of body cameras.
Protesters in Iran, angered by al-Nimr’s execution, broke into the Saudi Embassy early Sunday, setting fires and throwing papers from the roof.
Al-Abadi tweeted Saturday night that he was “shocked and saddened” by al-Nimr’s execution, adding that “peaceful opposition is a fundamental right”.
But by executing him – and three other Shiites – alongside more than 40 convicted al Qaeda attackers, including some of the Sunni jihadist movement’s most vehement ideologues, the Saudi government may have increased chances of internal sectarian conflict.
Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry said the executed men had been convicted of adopting the radical “takfiri” ideology, joining “terrorist organizations” and implementing various “criminal plots”.
Nimr – and Tehran – have always denied any link between them, and his trial, where evidence was presented, was not open to foreign journalists.
Al-Nimr was a central figure in protests by Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority until his arrest in 2012.
The last time Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution on this scale was in 1980, when the kingdom executed 63 people convicted over the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
In a message on Sunday, the Iranian president condemned Saudi Arabia’s “non-Islamic and inhuman” act of executing Sheikh Nimr, which was in “blatant violation of human rights and Islamic values”.
The supreme leader also posted to his website a critical illustration that compared a Saudi Arabian executioner with an ISIS Jihadi preparing to behead a victim.
Sheikh Nimr was a vocal critic of the monarchy.
A prominent cleric with close links to Iran’s ruling establishment denounced the execution and predicted the repercussions would bring down the Saudi ruling family.
Saudi Arabia summoned the Iranian ambassador, only to see its embassy stormed soon afterwards.
The U.S. war in Iraq further enflamed religious and ethnic tensions by leading to a Shiite-led government in Baghdad and a crucial shift in the sectarian balance of power in the region. Said the scholar and demanded worldwide bodies to react against Saudi government.
The execution of al-Qaida militants raised concerns over revenge attacks.
In 2014, a Saudi court sentenced Sheikh Nimr to death, provoking widespread global condemnations.
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Human rights activists saw al-Nimr not as an insurgent but as a dissenter and were appalled at the sentence.
