Pakistan, assault on US consulate in Karachi: at least 9 dead

NEW DELHI - At least nine people were killed and more than 30 injured on Sunday in Karachi, Pakistan, after hundreds of masked protesters stormed the US Consulate and clashed with police and paramilitary forces deployed to defend the diplomatic compound.

A senior security force official stated that protesters attacked the consulate perimeter but were dispersed and denied that any part of the building was set on flames. However, he added that protesters set fire to a nearby police post and broke the windows of the main building before security forces regained control of the situation.

Protests against the US consular office by Pakistan's Shia community broke out just hours after the US and Israel attacked Iran and killed the country's supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Pakistani Interior Minister, Mohsin Naqvi, appealed for calm: 'After the martyrdom of Ayatollah Khamenei,' he said, 'every citizen of Pakistan shares the grief of the Iranian people'. He called the day 'a day of mourning for the Muslim Ummah and the peoples of Iran and Pakistan', but urged the people not to take justice into their own hands and to express their protests in a peaceful manner.

The US Embassy in Pakistan wrote on X that it was monitoring reports of demonstrations taking place at the Consulates General in Karachi and Lahore, as well as calls for further protests in front of the US Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulate General in Peshawar.