In what is the most gruesome attack against an U.S. journalist in Egypt so far, CBS News is reporting that its chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan suffered “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” on Friday, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. She was covering the festivities in Tahrir Square for a 60 Minutes story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a mob of more than 200 people. Logan was eventually separated from her crew and was brutally assaulted before a group of women and soldiers came to her rescue. Logan, who has a 2-year-old son, was quickly flown back to the U.S. and is recovering in a hospital.
The news shows how volatile the security situation in Egypt continues to be. The U.S. networks dispatched some of its top news anchors to Cairo when the protests first started, but after several prominent TV journalists, including Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour and Fox News correspondent Greg Palkot, were attacked by angry mobs, most of anchors left Egypt.