Anderson Cooper has gone underground.
A day after being attack by a mob of supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and then assaulted again by the same rabble rousers who smashed his car window, CNN's star anchor has moved to a Cheney-esque "undisclosed location" out of fear for his and his crew's safety amid the ongoing tumult.
Luckily, not a hair on that beautiful white mane of his has been harmed. But he's not the only journalist under assault.
Reports have surfaced that major network anchors and news producers have been subject to a campaign of intimidation, threats and violence by government-backed thugs to keep them from covering the uprising.
"We'd like to be showing you live pictures of what's happening in Liberation Square right now," Cooper told Piers Morgan late last night. "But we can't do that because our cameras have been taken down through threats, through intimidations, through actual physical attacks, there are no live cameras that we can get access to right now."
Cooper's former CNN colleague, Christiane Amanpour, now at ABC News, found herself in a similar situation as she was fell upon and chased by pro-Mubarak demonstrators.
"An angry mob surrounded us and chased us into the car shouting that they hate America. They kicked in the car doors and broke our windshield as we drove away," she said.
CBS News' senior foreign correspondent Lara Logan and her crew were detained on Thursday outside Israel's embassy in Cairo by Egyptian military before being released today. She reported being threatened by Mubarak supporters and followed throughout the day while an ABC News producer said he was threatened with beheading. An NPR crew was also attacked.
Logan, along with CBS News anchor Katie Couric and NBC News anchor Brian Williams, have since returned to the U.S. out of safety concerns.
After being punched in the head two days ago by pro-government goons, Cooper holed up in an unidentified hideout not far from the action. But he and his 360 team subsequently switched locations after yesterday's violence.
Despite the violence though, he noted that CNN still has "eyes on what's happening" on the ground in Liberation Square. He also confessed his own fears, but quickly reminded his audience that the protesters calling for Mubarak to step down and seeking greater democracy in Egypt were equally at risk if not more so.
"I don't mind telling you I'm a little bit scared because we don't really know what the next few hours will hold and I think there's a lot of people tonight who are scared in Egypt," said the intrepid reporter. "I think there are people in that square who are fighting for their lives and understandably so because this is the second night of a full-on assault on them and they have been defending themselves for their lives."
Stay safe.