A senior religious leader in Iran has threatened to execute Saudi Arabia’s royal family in response to the killing of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday.

Senior Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami promised to exact revenge on the Saudi royal family on Iranian television on Saturday, stating:

“I see no reason to doubt that his pure blood is going to color the Saudi royal house and obliterate them from the history books.”

Speisa.com reports:

“The execution of Sheikh Nimr is part of a criminal pattern that this faithless family stands for. The Islamic world must stand up and condemn this shameful regime for all that it’s worth,” says Khatami further, according to the Iranian news agency Mehr.

Khatamis comments came shortly after Saudi Arabia announced that Nimr and 46 other Shiites had been executed in Saudi Arabia.

Also from Iraq, the executions were followed by immediate reactions, where Shia Muslim Mohammed al-Sayhud, who is elected to the Iraqi parliament, in less harsh terms than Khatami expressed his feelings, but the message was clear:

“Saudi Arabia’s intention is to create strife between Sunnis and Shiites and to set the region on fire,” said Sayhud on Saturday.

“This action that the ruling family in Saudi Arabia has undertaken, aims to ignite the region again, and to provoke sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites,” said Sayhud, according to the television channel Al-Sumaria television, on Saturday.