At least six people were killed and about a dozen were wounded in violent clashes with police and paramilitary forces Sunday after hundreds of protesters stormed the U.S. Consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, authorities said.

The violence came hours after the United States and Israel attacked Iran and killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Police and officials at a hospital in Karachi said at least eight people were also wounded in the clashes.

Summaiya Syed Tariq, a police surgeon at the city’s main government hospital, confirmed that six bodies and multiple injured people were brought to the facility. Karachi is the capital of southern Sindh province and Pakistan’s largest city.

Senior police official Irfan Baloch said protesters briefly attacked the perimeter of the U.S. Consulate but were later dispersed. “The situation is now fully under our control,” Baloch said.

He dismissed as baseless reports that any part of the consulate building was set on fire. However, he said protesters torched a nearby police post and smashed windows of the consulate before security forces arrived and regained control.

Witnesses said dozens of Shiite protesters remained gathered about a kilometer (half a mile) from the consulate, urging others to join them. Shiites make up roughly 15% of Pakistan’s population of about 250 million and represent one of the largest Shiite communities in the world. 

They have frequently staged anti-Israel and anti-U.S. rallies in the past, though clashes of this scale are rare.

Shiites also held a rally near the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province, police said. Faisal Kamran, a senior police official, said demonstrators tried to protest outside the consulate but were not allowed. 

Police dispersed the crowd when they tried to march toward the building, he said.

Source: AP

--Agencies