Journalists assaulted by pro-Mubarak forces

Scores of journalists were detained or assaulted by pro-Mubarak forces in Cairo yesterday, including Fox News veteran foreign correspondent Greg Palkot and his producer, Olaf Wiig, an advocacy group said. Both were hospitalized and later released.

The Manhattan-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday that there were 30 detentions and 26 assaults, and equipment had been seized. In a statement, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the assaults, saying, "Attacks on reporters are absolutely unacceptable."

Egyptian government spokesman Magdy Rady has denied government involvement in attacks on reporters and said officials welcomed objective coverage.

Few news organizations reporting on the chaos from the Egyptian capital were unaffected by Thursday's attacks. CNN's Anderson Cooper was assaulted a second day in a row when marauders smashed the window of a vehicle he was in. CBS correspondent Mark Strassmann and a cameraman were sprayed with mace. Washington Post and New York Times reporters were also detained; the Times reporters were held overnight before they were released.

TV anchors in New York Thursday repeatedly asked their field correspondents who was behind the attacks, and by the early evening news, some began to draw conclusions. NBC's Richard Engel reported on "Nightly News" that the vice president of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, had blamed TV coverage for stoking the initial unrest, and as a result, Engel said, "people in the secret service and police were hunting down reporters all day."

ABC's Christiane Amanpour conducted the first interview, which was off-camera, with embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but it could not be learned whether she asked about the attacks.Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement, "The systematic and sustained attacks documented by CPJ leave no doubt that a government-orchestrated effort to target the media and suppress the news is well under way.