On the spot: 'Crowd wanted to skin us alive'
Tim Albone, correspondent for The Times in Kabul, was caught in today's riots which he believes could mark a turning point in the Afghan's relations with coalition forces
"We tried to get out to where the accident happened on the outskirts of the city. I went in an Afghan car with a translator and photographer.
"We managed to get to within about a half-hour drive of where the accident happened and could hear gunfire. We stopped to ask what was going on.
"The mob crowded around the car and people were shouting: 'Let's get them - let's skin them alive'. We got out of there pretty quickly and as we were leaving we noticed a car was following behind.
"As we came onto a roundabout we ducked behind another car, pulled up onto the pavement and managed to lose him, thanks to the skill of our driver.
"I've been in Kabul for nine months and there has never been anything like this before. There is a real feeling in the air that today Kabul changed. There has been a lot of fighting in the south but this has mainly been between the militias and the American forces.
"Today it was angry teenagers - kids who have got nothing else to do. They are angry because they see all of the money being pumped into Afghanistan but still have no jobs.
"They are angry at the Americans who they see driving around as if they own the place and who appear to have caused this accident and then tried to drive away.
"I've spoken to friends who work in Iraq and they say that there was one day when it all changed. That could be the case here. They have realised that they can take on the police and take on the Americans - they could easily do it again.
"When the cartoons of Muhammad were published we saw maybe 300 people on the streets protesting. Today they were there in their thousands. There was gunfire outside the door of the Times office for about an hour, we could hear machine guns crackling.
"It was quite frightening. We're only two streets away from the Care International offices which were set alight. We could see the flames.
"By evening, the security forces appeared to have restored order. It's now very quiet and there are lots of police around, although interestingly there were no American troops or ISAF [the NATO-led international peacekeeping force] forces.
"The Americans are saying that this was just one day of unrest, but I was speaking to one guy and he was shouting: 'Death to America - death to Karzai...' There is a growing mood that the locals want the Americans to leave but that is simply not possible at the moment."
