Iran has sacked a senior security official over his failure to stop the attack on Saudi Arabia’s embassy.

Iran has sacked a senior security official over his failure to stop the attack on Saudi Arabia's embassy.

Safar Ali Baratlou's replacement as security deputy to Tehran's governor general was already under review, but the interior ministry said "a blind eye could not be turned" to what happened at the embassy.

The mission and the Saudi consulate in Mashhad, Iran's second city, were attacked by protesters angered by Riyadh’s execution of prominent cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

"After initial investigations, failures... were confirmed" in connection with the "assault on the Saudi embassy", the ministry said late Sunday, cited by the official IRNA news agency.

"Because of the importance of the matter, the interior ministry cannot overlook the smallest failures and factors that led to this incident," the statement added of the attack and Baratlou's dismissal.

Saudi regime executed Sheikh Nimr on January 2. He was a vocal supporter of the mass pro-democracy protests against Riyadh, which erupted in Eastern Province in 2011, where a Shia majority has long complained of marginalization.

Riyadh then cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after the incidents, deepening the crisis over the execution.

Other Arab countries followed suit and severed or reduced relations with Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani strongly condemned the attacks as "totally unjustifiable", urging judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani to deal with wrongdoers immediately.

About 50 people have been arrested over the attacks.

"Once and for all such assaults on the country's security, an insult to the establishment's authority and position, should be prevented by punishing perpetrators and those who ordered this blatant crime," Rouhani said in a letter to Larijani on Wednesday.