At least 22 people were killed in Pakistan on Sunday as Shia Muslims in the country held demonstrations against the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the war is causing turmoil across the region.
According to Reuters, security personnel at the US consulate in Karachi killed 10 people who breached the outerwall of the US diplomatic facility. The New York Times reported that two more protesters were killed near the US embassy in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and another 10 people died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.
Protests against the US attacks in Iran are also taking place in Baghdad, where Shia demonstrators have attempted to enter the Green Zone, where the US Embassy is located. “Their attempts had been thwarted so far, but they keep trying,” a security source told AFP.
Pakistan shares a more than 560-mile border with Iran, and about 15% of the country’s population is Shia Muslim. The US and Israeli attacks on Iran came as Pakistani and Afghan forces have been exchanging strikes and clashing along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, known as the Durand Line.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in a statement on Sunday that he expressed “profound sorrow over the martyrdom” of Khamenei and sent condolences to the Iranian people. “Pakistan stands with the Iranian nation in this moment of grief and shares in their loss,” he said.
