Iran claims Saudi airstrike hit its embassy in Yemen
Ali al-Mujahed and Hugh Naylor
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Supporters of Shiite cleric Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, who was executed in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 2, 2015, take part in an anti-Saudi protest in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Jan. 7. (Yahya Arhab/European Pressphoto Agency)
SANAA, Yemen — 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.
There was no visible evidence of harm to the embassy in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which is held by Iranian-friendly rebels who have faced more than nine months of air raids from a Saudi-led military coalition.
But the accusation signaled dangerously heightened friction after Saudi Arabia and a number of fellow Sunni countries severed or downgraded diplomatic relations with Iran, a Shiite-led theocracy, over the past week. The row threatened to intensify the rivals’ destructive proxy conflicts in the region, notably in Yemen.
And it cast even more uncertainty over U.S.-backed peace negotiations planned later this month over the civil war in Syria and international efforts to confront the Islamic State militant group.
“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.
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