At least 25 people have been killed in violent protests across Pakistan following the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes, according to an AFP tally on Monday. Demonstrations erupted in several major Pakistani cities including Karachi, where hundreds of protesters attempted to storm American diplomatic buildings and clashed with police.
At least 10 people died and over 70 were injured in Karachi, according to the office of the Karachi police surgeon. Nine of the deaths were due to gunshot wounds, according to a hospital toll seen by AFP. In the capital Islamabad, two more people were killed as thousands gathered in the streets, many holding portraits of Khamenei.
AFP journalists saw police firing tear gas to disperse crowds near the diplomatic enclave housing the US embassy on Sunday afternoon. A crowd of young people climbed over the main gate of the US consular building in Karachi, gaining access to the driveway and smashing windows before police dispersed them with tear gas.
n Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, at least 13 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police. Seven were killed in Gilgit, a rescue official said, while six others died in Skardu, a doctor told AFP on Monday. Authorities imposed a late-night curfew until Wednesday in both Gilgit and Skardu, where the army has been deployed on the streets.
Pakistani stocks plunged on Monday as the crisis deepened. The benchmark KSE-100 Index declined by 9.6 percent, shedding 16,089 points in what Karachi-based Topline Securities described as its "highest ever one-day fall." "It was a historic low today. It's an alarming and challenging situation for Pakistan," Sanie Khan, executive director of Floret Capitals, told AFP.
Israel and the United States launched their military operations against Iran on Saturday, quickly killing the long-ruling Khamenei and prompting outrage in neighbouring Pakistan. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has close ties with both the United States and Iran, said on Sunday that the killing was a "violation" of international law.
"It is an age old convention that the Heads of State/Government should not be targeted," Sharif wrote on X. "The people of Pakistan join the people of Iran in their hour of grief and sorrow and extend the most sincere condolences on the martyrdom" of Khamenei, he added.
On the streets of Karachi, protesters chanted slogans against the United States, Israel and their allies. "We don't need anything in Pakistan that is linked with the US," protester Sabir Hussain told AFP. The embassies of the United States and Britain both urged their citizens in Pakistan to exercise caution.
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