Robert Fisk: Blood and fear in Cairo's streets as Mubarak's men crack down on protests

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The sky was filled with rocks. The fighting around me was so terrible we could smell the blood
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-blood-and-fear-in-cairos-streets-as-mubaraks-men-crack-down-on-protests-2202657.html

"President" Hosni Mubarak's counter-revolution smashed into his opponents yesterday in a barrage of stones, cudgels, iron bars and clubs, an all-day battle in the very centre of the capital he claims to rule between tens of thousands of young men, both – and here lies the most dangerous of all weapons – brandishing in each other's faces the banner of Egypt. It was vicious and ruthless and bloody and well planned, a final vindication of all Mubarak's critics and a shameful indictment of the Obamas and Clintons who failed to denounce this faithful ally of America and Israel.

The fighting around me in the square called Tahrir was so terrible that we could smell the blood. The men and women who are demanding the end of Mubarak's 30-year dictatorship – and I saw young women in scarves and long skirts on their knees, breaking up the paving stones as rocks fell around them – fought back with an immense courage which later turned into a kind of terrible cruelty.

Some dragged Mubarak's security men across the square, beating them until blood broke from their heads and splashed down their clothes. The Egyptian Third Army, famous in legend and song for crossing the Suez Canal in 1973, couldn't – or wouldn't – even cross Tahrir Square to help the wounded.

(snip)
Street rumour had it that this man – Mitt Romney's "monarch-type figure" – might creep out of Egypt on Friday. I'm not so sure. Nor do I really know who won the Battle of Tahrir Square yesterday, though it will not remain long unresolved. At dusk, the stones were still cracking on to roads, and on to people. After a while, I started ducking when I saw passing birds.