(CNN) - Journalists attempting to cover unrest in Egypt reported being beaten, arrested and harassed by security forces and police Thursday, leading to sharply limited television coverage of the protests. Various news outlets - including the BBC, Al-Arabiya, ABC News, the Washington Post, Fox News, Al Jazeera and CNN - said members of their staffs had been attacked or otherwise targeted. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also reported that staffers were detained.

Today on American Morning, Kiran Chetry talks with James Rubin, former U.S. Asst. Secretary of State and current executive editor of the The Bloomberg View. Rubin's wife is ABC News' Christiane Amanpour, whose car was attacked while reporting in Egypt.

Rubin says Mubarak's tactics to protest protesters and round up journalists were not successful.  Protesters today show that this "really is the end for Mubarak," Rubin tells Chetry.

Countries across the Middle East are watching the chaotic unrest in the streets of Egypt and recent demonstrations in Tunisia with a close eye.

In Jordan, King Abdullah II sacked his government, named a new prime minister and met privately with leaders of the nation's main Islamist group in response to anti-government protests there. The Islamic Action Front, the political wing of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, planned another round of demonstrations Friday. On today’s American Morning, Salameh Nematt, Jordanian political analyst and international writer for the Daily Beast, joins AM’s T.J. Holmes from Amman, Jordan.

Nematt says anti-government protests and how the violence is being handled in Egypt is having a "major influence on public opinion" throughout the Middle East, especially in Jordan, which he calls a "moderating force" for the United States in the Middle East.

Nematt describes why Jordan protesters are taking to the streets and how the king is reacting.

Who are the pro-democracy protesters leading the unrest on the streets of Egypt? While protesters of all ages have all been spotted participating, the youth generation—bonded together by the Internet— is significantly influencing the rising movement in the country.

TIME’s cover story takes a closer look into the pro-democracy protesters. The organizers are young, but maybe not as young as you think. Check out American Morning’s preview of the piece with its author Bobby Ghosh, deputy international editor of TIME.

What other countries in the Middle East and North Africa have rising youth movements? Find out here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/02/arab.youth.challenges/

(CNN) - Heavy gunfire reverberated in central Cairo before dawn Thursday as supporters and foes of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued to face off at Tahrir Square, where chunks of concretes and Molotov cocktails were employed as weapons in the escalating crisis. CNN personnel saw wounded people being carried into Tahrir Square, largely held by anti-regime demonstrators, through an entrance that leads to the nearby Egyptian Museum. Several ambulances entered and left the square shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday. Sustained automatic weapons fire, including from what sounded like a heavy machine gun, echoed around the square, the epicenter of nine days of protests calling for Mubarak's ouster. Anti-government demonstrators hunkered down behind makeshift barricades in the square and outside the nearby national museum against the onslaught, which demonstrators said included plainclothes police officers.

With unrest still happening throughout Egypt this morning between anti-Mubarak and pro-Mubarak protesters, what options does Mubarak have, and how should President Obama approach the situation?

Today on American morning, Mona Eltahawy, a columnist who was born in Egypt, and Nicholas Burns, former Under Secretary of State and now professor of diplomacy and international politics at Harvard, discuss Egypt and America's next diplomatic steps with T.J. Holmes.

Egyptologists and archaeologists have been at unease since late last week when the unrest in Egypt led to damages to some of the nation's priceless treasures. Last Friday, looters at the Cairo Museum damaged two statues of King Tutankhamun, broke 13 glass showcases and damaged 70 other antiquities. There have also been reports of looting at dig sites around the country.

This morning, Dr. Bob Brier, Egyptologist, tells AM’s Kiran Chetry and T.J. Holmes what damage has been done, how it can be repaired, and how some Egyptians are banding together to protect the museums.

Brier says the entire country of Egypt is a "vast outdoor museum," and that the monuments are certainly not safe.