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At least 25 killed at Pakistan's weekend pro-Iran protests
The death toll from Pakistan's violent weekend protests over the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes has reached at least 25, according to an AFP tally on Monday.
The demonstrations against the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei erupted in several major Pakistani cities including Karachi, where hundreds of protesters attempted to storm American diplomatic buildings and clashed with police, an AFP journalist saw.
At least 10 people died and over 70 were injured in those rallies, according to the office of the Karachi police surgeon. AFP saw a hospital toll that said nine of the deaths were due to gunshot wounds.
In the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, at least 13 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police, officials said.
Of those, seven were killed in Gilgit, a rescue official said, while six others died in Skardu, a doctor told AFP on Monday.
Authorities have imposed a late-night curfew until Wednesday in Gilgit and Skardu, where the army has been deployed on the streets.
Two more people were killed as thousands gathered in the streets of the capital Islamabad, many holding portraits of Khamenei.
On Sunday afternoon, AFP journalists saw police firing tear gas to disperse crowds near the diplomatic enclave housing the US embassy in Islamabad.
Pakistani stocks plunged on Monday. The benchmark KSE-100 Index declined by 9.6 percent, shedding 16,089 points in what Karachi-based Topline Securities said was 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.
- 'Grief and sorrow' -
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.
At Sunday's Karachi protest, people chanted slogans against the United States, Israel and their allies.
"We don't need anything in Pakistan that is linked with the US," a protester, Sabir Hussain, told AFP.
Earlier a crowd of young people climbed over the main gate and gained access to the driveway of the consular building, smashing some windows.
Police fired tear gas at the protesters, who dispersed, the AFP journalist saw.
The embassies of the United States and Britain both urged citizens in Pakistan to be cautious.
strs-zz/je/mjw
R. Borges--JDB
