Pakistani police fired on thousands of stonethrowing demonstrators in southern Jacobabad on Sunday, killing one and injuring 12, to stop the crowd besieging a local airport where US forces are deployed.
The protesters, who had evaded a huge security cordon thrown up around the city, hurled stones, prompting paramilitary rangers and police to open fire and use teargas to try to break up the crowds in the town in southern Sindh province.
All roads to the Shahbaz airbase, a Pakistan air force strip at which weekly commercial flights from Karachi land, have been closed. The airport has been closed all week and no civilian has been allowed to enter the area, one local businessman said.
In a related development, authorities in the North West Frontier province released pro-Taliban Islamic party leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman from a week of house arrest.
Mr Rehman, who leads the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) party which had called for today's Jacobabad protest and was one of three pro-Taliban Islamic leaders detained last week, told Reuters by telephone he had received official word about his release late on this afternoon.
At least one person, the son of a leading local cleric, was killed in the Jacobabad protests, witnesses and officials said.
They said at least 12 people had been injured, including one policeman and two protesters who were seriously hurt.
Pakistan, as part of its pledge to offer the United States non-combat logistical support for raids on Afghanistan, has allowed US forces onto two airports - Jacobabad and the remote Pasni on the Arabian Sea coast.
An airport source in Jacobabad told Reuters this week that none of the Americans at the base appeared to be combat soldiers - in line with a commitment by Pakistan to supply logistical support but not to act as a springboard for strikes on Afghanistan.