The first shot sounded sharply. It was clear something was wrong.
I heard the second crack, and a third, fourth, fifth, and at that point all the journalists were on the ground, ducking from the whizzing bullets. The Taliban were attacking a ceremony led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"Get down! Get down!" people yelled to each other.
Karzai and hundreds of Afghan and foreign dignitaries had been preparing to take to their seats across from Kabul's largest mosque. They were marking the 16th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet-backed communist regime in Afghanistan.
The gunfire broke out as a marching band was playing the national anthem....
...Two American soldiers who had been saluting in the bleachers near the president pointed to some nearby houses, from where the gunfire appeared to have come. They still put their hands back up to their caps in salute as the anthem ended.
Dozens of parliamentarians looked around in puzzlement before realizing the danger and scrambling for cover. Two lawmakers wearing turbans in the front row were hit by bullets. One was hit in the stomach and fell to the ground, the other slumped back in his seat, just 30 meters (yards) from where Karzai was sitting.
Karzai was hustled away, unhurt, by bodyguards to an exit at the back of the stand, and driven away in a convoy of four black SUVs.
Several minutes of automatic gunfire followed and a few louder explosions from rockets.
There was chaos as hundreds of people made their escape. The Cabinet ministers and foreign ambassadors sped away in their SUVs....
....I ran toward a three-meter (10-foot) -high wall with several other journalists clutching video cameras and tripods. To our surprise, uniformed soldiers and armed police followed hot on our heels. Uniformed musicians of the marching band also ran away.
"The security is so bad. How could they get so close to this event and fire right at us?" one army officer complained, panting with exhaustion, his face white with fear.
Soldiers barked at me to turn off my phone, fearing that anyone using a mobile phone could be helping to coordinate the attack.
Security appeared tighter than last year for the annual pageant.
Karzai had inspected assembled troops from a U.S.-supplied Humvee jeep, looking from a hatch in the roof, metal shields on either side of him. Last year he appeared in open-top jeep.
Soldiers in military vehicles had blocked off the main avenues leading to the ceremony site two days ago, and pedestrians were barred from surrounding hilltops overlooking the ceremony.
