A diplomatic crisis roiling the Middle East intensified Thursday as Iran claimed that a Saudi airstrike overnight hit its embassy in Yemen, a charge not supported by signs of damage but that nevertheless raised tensions between the rivals.
"Saudi Arabia is responsible for the damage to the embassy building and the injury to some of its staff," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari was quoted as saying by state television news channel IRIB.
The most recent flare-up between Saudi Arabia and Iran - long-time ideological and strategic competitors whose competition has greatly exacerbated Islam's Sunni-Shiite rift - began last week: Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric, spurring protesters in Iran to ransack the Saudi Embassy and a consulate.
A memorial service for the executed cleric, Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, went ahead peacefully Thursday in Awamiya in Saudi Arabia's predominantly Shiite eastern region, although armored personnel carriers rumbled through the village and protesters burned tires in the streets, the Associated Press reported.