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Pictures from the army in tahrir square, on the street behind me, but they're largely absent in many of the neighborhoods in cairo. i've seen people are setting up barricades, handing out sticks and kitchen knifes to the men and teenagers in the neighborhoods because people are worried about looters, about anarchy, they're worried about prisoners escaping, and just creating havoc in the street. and by and large the army is enjoying the sort of lovefest in tahrir square. but people, we're getting phone calls from all over cairo, panicked people, saying that there are criminals in the street, th...

Their garb because we've seen police stations being torched, being burned down, but first looted. weapons have been taken from the police. that shield we saw a moment ago could have been stolen from a politician police station. alexandria has been going toward violence, away from violence, this was shot in the last 24 hours, that suggests things quieted down there and then got worse again, which is what we heard from our nic robertson. he's actually in that city which unlike cairo is on the mediterranean coast of egypt. it's not right next door, it's about a three-hour drive. it tends to have ...

Nic robertson is there. you've heard gun shots there and there were signs of tear gas and other indicators of real problems there in alexandria. >> reporter: the problems that are emerging are very much like ben describes in cairo. here the army only present in very small numbers in the center of the city and a very weak position, not prepared to take on the crowds, not willing to even stand up and stop them when they climb on their trucks, when they climb on trucks to celebrate. we have heard gun shots, we've seen just below the balcony here, someone being pulled off by a small mob. a lot of ...

On the u.s. list after afghanistan, pakistan and israel. a key player in the middle east peace process, helping to get cease-fire agreements, they host operation bright star. president obama chose cairo in 2009 as the site of a major speech, an outreach to the muslim world. >> so first tunisia, and then algeria threatening also yemen and now egypt. will there be a ripple effect across the entire region? >> we're already seeing some kind of resonance, but this is the concern for the obama administration. joining us from washington, cnn state department producer, elise labo labott. they wanted m...

That seems to be the impression of many egyptians. and it must be pointed out, the army has no training in restoring civil order. they're an army. they're an army that's trained to fight the enemies of egypt, not he egyptian people. the soldiers i can tell you, they don't know what to do. they're out in their tanks, they're enjoying all the back slaps, the hugs, the kisses and the photographs people are making of them, but they're not really on sure ground when it comes to establishing law and order in the capital. jonathan? >> wow. cnn's long-time cairo bureau chief, ben wedeman, thankscontr ...