Iraq Sunni mosques attacked in possible retaliation to Saudi execution

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--Two Sunni mosques were attacked in Iraq and two people were killed on Tuesday in what appeared to be a "retaliation" for Saudi Arabia's execution of the Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday.

The mosques attacked were in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad. Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said "Daesh [ISIS] and those who are similar to them," were behind the attacks and called upon the authorities "to chase the criminal gangs" responsible for the attacks.

Reuters reports that one of the attacks destroyed the walls and dome of the mosque.

As a Shiite-majority country Iraqis were outraged by this execution. Iraq's preeminent Shiite cleric Ayatollah al-Sistani condemned the execution and Shiite militias held demonstrations and called upon the central government in Baghdad to sever its relations with its southern neighbour just days after a Saudi embassy was reopened in Baghdad for the first time since 1990.

"We demand the government expel the Saudi ambassador... [otherwise] the government will be responsible for the popular backlash," one Iran-backed Shiite militia group, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, declared in an online statement.