text: How many pilgrims died and how they died are both disputed. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia blame each other for the loss of life. Estimates of fatalities range from 400 with thousands more injured (Iranian government); 402, of which 275 were Iranian pilgrims, 85 Saudi police, and 42 pilgrims from other countries (Saudi government); and more than 400 dead (New York Times).  Saudis claim the pilgrims were armed and died in a stampede. Iranians claim many were killed by Saudi gunfire.
  After the incident, Iranians attacked the Saudi, Kuwaiti and French Embassies, abducting four Saudis from the embassy.
  Background
  Iran and Saudi Arabia have been called "bitter regional rivals" on "opposing sides of bloody conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq". This is in part for theological reasons — namely the differences between the two Islamic schools of thought that their governments adhere to.  The Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam has both long supported the ruling House of Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and long opposed Shi'i Islam as a sect deviant from true Islam.  Iranian Shia majority and Shi'i government were well aware of Wahhabi antagonism towards them  and the "history of mistrust" between Shi‘ite pilgrims and Sunni hosts  "stretches back as far as the sixteenth century".
  Adding to this was the revolutionary antagonism of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his anti-American, anti-monarchy Iranian Revolutionary followers against the pro-American royal rulers of Saudi Arabia.