Iran says its embassy in Yemen bombed

Saudi Arabia promises probe; both countries take further steps to sever commercial ties

DUBAI:  Iran said on Thursday Saudi warplanes had attacked its embassy in Yemen’s capital, while Riyadh said it would investigate the accusation.

"Saudi Arabia is responsible for the damage to the embassy building and the injury to some of its staff," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari was quoted as saying by Iranian state television news channel IRIB.

Residents and witnesses in the capital Sanaa said there was no damage to the embassy building in Hadda district.

They said an air strike had hit a public square about 700 metres away from the embassy and that some stones and shrapnel had landed in the embassy’s yard.

A Sanaa resident went to the embassy on Thursday and reported no damage but said there was some shrapnel strewn nearby.

Saudi coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said coalition jets carried out heavy strikes in Sanaa on Wednesday night to target missile launchers used by the Houthi militia to fire at Saudi Arabia.

He said the coalition would investigate Iran’s accusation and added that the Houthis has used civilian facilities including abandoned embassies. Asseri said the coalition had requested all countries to supply it with coordinates of the location of their diplomatic missions and that accusations made on the basis of information provided by the Houthis "have no credibility". Iran and Saudi Arabia took further steps to sever commercial ties on Thursday, intensifying a feud between the regional rivals, as Tehran announced a ban on imports from Saudi Arabia and Saudi groups called for boycotts of Iranian products.

Iran’s government said it had forbidden imports from Saudi Arabia after a cabinet meeting chaired by President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday morning, according to state news agency IRNA.

The cabinet also reaffirmed a ban on Umrah pilgrimages to Makkah, first imposed in April in response to an alleged sexual assault on two male Iranians by Saudi airport guards.

Trade between Saudi Arabia and Iran is small compared with the size of their economies, but tens of thousands of Iranians travel to the kingdom every year to complete the Haj as well as Umrah pilgrimages made outside of Haj season.

Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran on Sunday over the storming of its embassy in Tehran, intensifying a diplomatic crisis set in motion by the kingdom’s execution of a prominent cleric, Ayatollah Shaikh Nimr, the previous day.

Savola, the kingdom’s largest food products company, which earns some 13 per cent of total revenues from Iran, said on Tuesday it plans to maintain its investments there despite the standoff.

But it and the few other Saudi companies doing business in Iran faced increasing public pressure over the course of the week, as consumer and business groups called for boycotts of Iranian products.

Chamber of commerce leaders told local daily newspaper al-Riyadh that Saudi businesses should replace Iranian goods with alternatives from other Arab and Islamic countries.

A trade boycott would cause the kingdom little economic harm, they said, noting that imports from Iran mainly consist of pistachio nuts and pickles.

Consumer activist group Mogatah also urged Saudi businesses to remove Iranian goods from their shelves, posting photos of Iranian products for sale in Saudi Arabia on social media along with calls to support the government’s policy.

The group scolded Swedish home goods retailer Ikea for selling a Persian carpet with a "made in Iran" label at its stores in Saudi Arabia, and applauded a local Riyadh-based carpet shop chain for deciding to end sales of Iranian rugs.