PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) -- Protesters angered by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed torched a KFC restaurant and a mobile phone office in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday, witnesses said.

Police used tear gas to disperse a mob of around 200 protesters who stormed the U.S. fast food franchise and the nearby main office of the cellphone company Mobilink. "Fire is still raging from the KFC," resident Tehseen Khan told AFP. "I can see smoke coming out of the windows, the furniture has been gutted."

Police also confirmed the KFC was ablaze and said protesters were targeting anything linked to foreign companies.

"The heat is on. Wherever they see Telenor or multinational companies billboards they are trying to smash them," Peshawar police officer Malik Saad told AFP.

Telenor is the largest telecommunications group in Norway, one of the Western countries where the controversial cartoons have been published.

Witnesses said the KFC restaurant had hung blankets over its red neon signs late Tuesday in an apparent bid to avert possible attacks against it.

Another 500 rioters attacked the main bus stand on the outskirts of Peshawar, damaging buses belonging to several private inter-city transport companies, police spokesman Riaz Ahmed told AFP.