As more than 50 people are still missing, the death toll from a fire at a shopping mall in Karachi over the weekend has increased to at least 14 according to Pakistani authorities.
Syed Asad Raza, the South deputy inspector general of police, reported to the Dawn newspaper on Monday that rescuers had recovered eight more bodies since Sunday evening, increasing the death toll to six to fourteen.
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A total of five bodies have been transported to a local hospital, according to police surgeon Dr. Summaiya Syed, according to the daily.
Police and rescue teams have contacted families to get details, and they are tracing the 54 to 59 missing people using mobile phone data.
The southern Sindh province’s capital and largest city is Karachi, Pakistan.
More than 70 people are missing, according to Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori, who made the visit on Monday.
According to Tessori, “the reports of more than 70 missing persons are incredibly concerning and a major tragedy,” adding that the incident has now “becomes a national tragedy.”
The Gul Plaza shopping mall, a crowded commercial complex, experienced late on Saturday’s fire. After about 36 hours, firefighters managed to control the massive fire, allowing rescue teams to enter the structure to free those trapped inside.
However, officials cautioned against the building’s current extreme instability and potential collapse.
As flames continued to erupt on a portion of the mall, rescue chief operating officer Abid Jalal reported to Dawn later that day.
Officials initially believed an electrical short in one of the stores was the cause of the fire, but later claimed the cause has not been determined and that a police investigation is ongoing.
Local media members and shop owners expressed anger among traders who claimed decades of lost livelihoods had been lost due to the delayed response and equipment shortages and water.
Karachi has a history of deadly fires that are frequently brought on by illegal construction and poor safety standards. Ten people died and 22 others were hurt in a fire at a city mall in November 2023.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged that “several thousands” of Iranians have been killed since protests started in downtown Tehran in late December, before gradually spreading to both large and small cities.
Because Khamenei has typically avoided making comments about death tolls during previous protests in Iran over the years, that confirmation is unusual.
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However, the narratives made by the Iranian state, the opposition there, and US President Donald Trump differ sharply from one another regarding exactly what has transpired during the unrest and what might follow.
What are our absolute best guesses?
Over the course of the days that followed, the protests spread to the capital city’s business and trade districts, where they began, and eventually turned into nationwide outbursts of anger and frustration at the political establishment.
According to state officials, the media, foreign-based outlets, and eyewitness accounts on the ground, the nights of January 8 and 9 were by far the deadliest.
The head of Iran’s medical examiner body, Abbas Masjedi Arani, reported to state media that many of the victims were fatally wounded when they were shot in the chest or head from close range or from rooftops.
According to state media, young Iranians, many of whom were in their 20s, were the most frequently on the streets.
It was impossible to call rescue services in an emergency because Iranian authorities completely blocked access to mobile communications on January 8th.
After nearly two weeks, the unheard of internet blackout gradually began to fade, but the majority of the nation’s 90 million people are still unsure of what the future might hold.
In recent days, local calls, SMS text messages, and incoming international calls have all been restored. A local intranet that provides a few services is operational.
Thousands of heavily armed security forces have now started setting up patrols and checkpoints all over the country, particularly at flashpoints like Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, which has largely ended the protests on the streets.
A small minority of Iranians are able to leave the country or access Starlink satellite internet, which bypasses the government’s internet restrictions, despite the government’s digital blackout, where video of the protests outside Iran has been rare.
What is said by the state?
Iranian officials have consistently emphasized that the US and Israel are responsible for the protests, accusing the international powers of providing weapons and funding for the opposition.
Trump, Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, called Khamenei a “criminal” for repeatedly directly involving himself in the unrest.
The Iranian government claims that “terrorists” who were armed and trained, not state forces, directly contributed to the protests’ deaths. They assert that Americans and Israelis shot and stabbed people to thwart peaceful demonstrations.
Judiciary officials have emphasized that those responsible for “riots” will be swiftly punished without any evidence of mercy. To expedite cases involving protests, the Supreme Court and the general prosecutor’s office announced on Sunday that they had established a joint workgroup.
What are monitors with offices abroad saying?
Iranians opposed to the Iranian establishment and Iranians who are based abroad maintain that state forces have executed protesters in sizable numbers.
More than 3, 300 confirmed deaths and over 4, 300 additional cases are being investigated, according to the most recent figures from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
Additionally, according to the organization, more than 24 000 people have been detained, and 2, 107 have suffered severe injuries.
According to an unnamed Iranian official in the area, at least 5, 000 people have died, including about 500 security personnel, according to an Reuters news agency citing an unnamed Iranian official in the area on Sunday. Apparently, the northwest of Iran’s Kurdish-majority regions were the site of the majority of deaths.
These figures cannot be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
According to reports from international outlets, Iranian authorities demand that protesters’ families be given “bullet money” to allow their burial or that their families be required to sign documents stating they belong to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Basij paramilitary force. Both claims have been refuted by Iranian authorities.
What are Israel’s and the US saying?
Over the past few months, including during the 12-day conflict in June, US and Israeli officials have been openly promoting the possibility of replacing Tehran’s theocratic leadership.
Trump pleaded with Iranians to stay in the streets during the height of the demonstrations before expressing “great respect” for the Iranian leadership on the grounds that more than 800 political prisoners’ planned executions had been postponed.
Iranian prosecutor Ali Salehi responded to the accusation on Saturday, saying that “our response will be deterring and quick. The US president speaks a lot of nonsense.”
Trump, however, continued to make comments, and on Saturday called Khamenei’s 37-year rule a “sick man” and criticized the Iranian leader.
As raging wildfires forced at least 50 000 people to evacuate and were killed by Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, on Sunday in two southern regions, the country’s president declared a state of catastrophe.
As of Sunday morning, Chile’s forestry agency CONAF reported that firefighters were battling 24 active fires in the state’s Nuble and Biobio regions, with the most of them occurring in the provinces of Nuble and Biobio. The area is located 310 kilometers south of Santiago, the city’s capital.
“I’ve made the decision to declare a state of catastrophe in the areas of Double and Biobo due to the serious wildfires that are already occurring. Boric stated in a post on X that “all resources are available.”
In the two regions so far, nearly 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) have been consumed by fires, which have threatened several communities and issued evacuation orders.
According to officials, extreme weather, including strong winds and high temperatures, has accelerated the spread of wildfires and made it more difficult for firefighters to control them. Extreme heat alerts were in place for a large portion of Chile on Sunday and Monday, with temperatures expected to reach 38C (100F) from Santiago to Biobio.
South-central Chile has experienced severe wildfires in recent years as a result of growing evidence of the country’s extreme weather, drought, and flood impacts.
The public prosecutor’s office reported that 138 people died in the two fires that erupted simultaneously in Vina del Mar, northwest of Santiago, in February 2024.
After nearly two weeks of bloody fighting, a ceasefire between the government and the Kurdish-led SDF brought back hopes for peace and national unity in Syria. Ayman Oghanna from Al Jazeera was in Damascus entertaining crowds.
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa is set to meet Mazloum Abdi, the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to consolidate a ceasefire after days of battles that saw the army and government-allied tribal forces sweep across the north of the country from Aleppo to Raqqa.
The meeting on Monday, postponed from Sunday due to bad weather, follows a dramatic escalation that saw Syrian government forces retake large swathes of territory in the northeast, forcing the SDF to accept a truce and a wide-ranging agreement that brings Kurdish civilian and military authorities under central state control.
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On Sunday, Abdi, also known as Mazloum Kobani, announced his acceptance of the ceasefire declared and signed on camera by al-Sharaa, stating in a televised address that the conflict had been imposed on the SDF and planned by several parties. He said he would outline the terms of the agreement after returning from Damascus.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed an agreement in Damascus on January 18, 2026 [Rami al-Sayed/AFP]
Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Ayman Oghanna said the ceasefire agreement triggered an outpouring of public joy in the capital.
“Last night, after the deal was struck, there were huge celebrations in the street – there were fireworks, there were cars honking, there were people dancing in the streets,” Oghanna said.
He added that many expressed “a sense of relief and cautious joy, but some were sceptical” after weeks of deadly fighting.
That scepticism reflects fears that the ceasefire may not hold, Oghanna noted, in a country that was racked by a ruinous civil war for nearly 14 years.
Despite doubts, exhaustion appears to dominate public sentiment. “Everyone we spoke to here in Damascus, including many Syrian Kurds, just wanted a peaceful solution,” he said, adding that Syrians are “exhausted by conflict and they wanted a diplomatic solution to the ongoing crisis in the north”.
Economic hardship now looms large. “Everyone we spoke to was worried about their pocket and the economy,” Oghanna said, noting that “90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line” and hope that calm will allow a focus on recovery.
‘Turning military operation into civilian policing’
Abdi said the SDF’s withdrawal from Deir Az Zor and Raqqa to Hasakah was aimed at preventing further bloodshed and averting civil war.
He acknowledged that the SDF suffered heavy losses, but said it would defend what he described as its gains.
SDF commander and senior People’s Protection Units figure Sipan Hamo told Reuters that the group was not seeking separation from Syria and called for guarantees from the United States and other international actors. He denied receiving support from Iran or Russia but said he hoped Israel would intervene in favour of Syria’s Kurds.
The Syrian presidency said the ceasefire guarantees the integration of SDF fighters into state institutions and the deployment of government authorities to Raqqa, Deir Az Zor and Hasakah.
Al-Sharaa said the deal provides for the full integration of the SDF into the army and called on tribal forces to allow its implementation.
Asked by Al Jazeera about the timeline for implementation and the fate of a March agreement last year, al-Sharaa said the current deal reflects the spirit of that accord.
Reporting from Aleppo, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said attention is now shifting from the ceasefire announcement to how the Syrian state governs areas newly brought back under its control.
Basravi said the meeting between al-Sharaa and Abdi is expected to clarify unresolved questions regarding “some of the ambiguities of this deal”, said Basravi.
But he stressed that the more immediate challenge lies on the ground. “In the next 24 hours to the next few days, there is a practical aspect that has to be addressed by the Syrian government. They have come out on the better side of this deal. They’ve gotten everything they wanted,” Basravi said.
With government forces now the dominant power, he said the burden has shifted. “Now they have the role of having to protect the minority groups here”, particularly as areas move “from front lines and now they have to go back to civilian spaces”.
Basravi said this requires “turning this military operation into a civilian policing” effort, resisting revenge and integrating the region economically with the rest of Syria now.
Syria gains resource revenue
Speaking from Beirut, Lebanon, Middle East geopolitical analyst Joe Macaron said Syria’s regaining of control over oil and gas resources could reshape the ceasefire dynamics and Damascus’s political leverage.
“This is a major source of revenue. It was for the SDF,” Macaron said, adding that while the assets are now under state control, gains will not come immediately. “They have to secure it. They have to prepare the necessary infrastructure,” he said, stressing that revenues could eventually support reconstruction and mark “a new phase somehow”.
However, Macaron warned that the ceasefire faces serious tests. The most difficult issue remains the integration of fighters from the SDF. “It’s widely known that those who fought in the ranks of the SDF are not just Kurds, but also foreign fighters,” he said, calling integration a big risk to the agreement.
He said negotiations have shifted decisively in favour of Damascus. “The negotiation dynamic has changed,” Macaron said, noting that al-Sharaa now insists fighters join “as individuals after we clear their status”.
Beyond Kurdish areas, Macaron said, Damascus now inherits complex tribal politics. “Now it’s their problem,” he said, warning that tribal demands could pose a long-term test. “I think they’re going to be tested moving forward.”
On Sunday, al-Sharaa met US special envoy Tom Barrack in Damascus. Barrack later said the agreement marked a turning point, writing on X that it paves the way for renewed dialogue and cooperation towards a unified Syria.
The US, which maintains forces in hundreds in northern Syria, is especially focused on combating any resurgence of ISIL (ISIS) in the area, following a deadly attack on US soldiers and civilian contractors in Palmyra in December.
The US carried out a new round of “large-scale” attacks last week against ISIL in Syria following the ambush that killed two US soldiers and a civilian interpreter.
The Syrian Ministry of Defence announced a ceasefire on all fronts, saying it would allow safe corridors for civilians to return home and enable state institutions to resume their work.
The agreement follows a two-day Syrian military operation that reclaimed key areas in the east and northeast after earlier understandings with the SDF collapsed.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also discussed the latest developments in Syria with al-Sharaa during a phone call and said Ankara would continue to support Damascus.
