New Delhi: At least 9 pro-Iran supporters were killed Sunday in Karachi when they clashed with security personnel while trying to storm into the US Consulate in the Pakistani port city.
Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest English daily newspaper, quoted a hospital official saying that 9 people were killed in Karachi. Several others, including police, were reported to be injured in the clash.
The mob had descended on Mai Kolachi Road after anger over the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israel attack at his Tehran office on Saturday morning.
After Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed Khamenei’s killing, hundreds of protesters organised by Shia groups marched from Sultanabad, a location very close to the US Consulate in Karachi.
Even as police and paramilitary initially responded with tear gas and baton charge, television visuals show scores of protesters breaching the boundaries of the Consulate, breaking through the compound gates and smashing the glass windows with stones.
Protests were also reported from Lahore, Skardu and Islamabad after the joint US-Israel strike in Iran.
The US embassy posted on ‘X’ that it was monitoring reports of ongoing demonstrations at the American Consulates General in Karachi and Lahore, as well as calls for additional demonstrations at US Embassy Islamabad and Consulate General Peshawar.
We are monitoring reports of ongoing demonstrations at the U.S. Consulates General in Karachi and Lahore, as well as calls for additional demonstrations at U.S. Embassy Islamabad and Consulate General Peshawar. We advise U.S. citizens in Pakistan to monitor local news and…
— U.S. Embassy Islamabad (@usembislamabad) March 1, 2026
Khamenei, 86, had shaped Iran’s era of defiance against the West, taking over power in 1989 following the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, the ideological founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Straits of Hormuz, according to Iranian state media, has been effectively closed. The closure of the straits that channels the flow of almost a fifth of global oil supply is expected to impact international markets.
(Edited by Tony Rai)