ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--Iran has arrested forty people for setting fire to the embassy of Saudi Arabia early on Sunday. "Forty people who had entered the embassy building have been identified and arrested so far," Tehran's Public Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said, according to Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency. Angry demonstrators in both Tehran and Mashhad descended upon Saudi diplomatic missions after Saudi Arabia's execution of the Shiite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr along with 46 others on Saturday. The fire in the Tehran embassy was caused by throwing firecrackers by the crowd but was extinguished shortly thereafter. The crowd also ransacked the embassy by breaking furniture and windows. Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari condemned Saudi Arabia's decision to execute Nimr but also called for calm among angry Iranians. He said Iran was required to protect foreign diplomatic institutions. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed, while talking to other clerics in Iran's capital, on Sunday that Saudi Arabia would face "divine revenge" for executing Nimr and that, "The unjustly spilt blood of this martyr will have quick consequences."
