toxic, and tonight there would have been no way to predict that. someone here said of the uprising, it s over. while that might have been hyperbolic, this is the heavy gunfire that you re hearing there, is that again warning shots? does it appear to be directed at people at ground level, or is it in the air? can you tell? reporter: it appears to be in the air. you don t hear the rounds that we saw a tracer round go over the heads of the protesters. it seems to be coming from an armored personnel carrier that we saw in an underpass. big caliber, heavy aomatic
they appear to be this tank is creating a smoke screen to get people cover. as it heads toward a different position. i m not sure if they are going to go all the way into tahrir square. it s taking up position for a rapidly escalating situation. it could be doing what we all seem to be one of the more responsible things right now, to create a barrier, one of smoke between the demonstrators and protesters. that is what s going on. creating a line of smoke to allow people to escape or have some cover. this is the first action we have seen all day of the army to try to intervene and prevent egyptians from attacking other
the ground who can see what s happening has a way of getting out. there s something other than state controlled media operating in egypt. the official story is very important to the strategy to stay in power and defeat the ruz pollution. the official story in egypt has competition. mubarak decided to stage a crackdown not in the form of sending police in or soldiers in. by sending thugs in. reporter: a lot of the people are paid thugs, enforcers for president mubarak s political party. a lot of them are plain-clothes policemen. reporter: lynchings have been widespread. lynchings. there s evidence the government is paying mubarak supporters to go on the attack. there are people that believe among the protesters there might be some people who are actually
from pro-mubarak forces. we ve been monitoring this situation over the hour. the momentum has not gone away. that this situation continues to evolve. the people are not dispersing. it is hard to get a grasp on the connection between what we re seeing on this bridge and what else is happening on tahrir square. reporter: i think what we re seeing now is vengeance. they have been fighting all day. they have spilled out. and they are no longer operating as a group. before it seems almost shields were interlocked, there was a line of protesters and mubarak protesters that had clear lines, that they were using back and forth. now, it is people wandering the streets searching for someone from the other camp. and the army taking some steps, not direct intervention. we ve seen them use smoke. we can smell some tear gas.
lost. they were penned in, really in a tight circle by pro-mubarak supporters. they said if they lost, they would come back tomorrow. they would come back again and have the biggest movement on friday. the pro-mubarak supporters have a similar situation. we have not seen the last of them or the last of the face-offs in cairo. if there are not large scale protests tomorrow, just small scale and they reconvene for friday, will the timing offer for a momentum shift in either direction? one could only hope that this would wake people up and reach some sort of negotiated settlement. all though, there doesn t seem to be room for negotiation. president mubarak said he will die in this country. the protesters say they will die