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Travel Alert
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
This information is current as of today, Mon May 19 2008 07:48:05 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time).
Mexico
April 14, 2008
This Travel Alert updates information for U.S. citizens on security situations in Mexico that may affect their activities while in that country. This supersedes the Travel Alert for Mexico dated October 24, 2007, and expires on October 15, 2008.
Violence Along The U.S.-Mexico Border
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Violent criminal activity fueled by a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade continues along the U.S.-Mexico border. Attacks are aimed primarily at members of drug trafficking organizations, Mexican police forces, criminal justice officials, and journalists. However, foreign visitors and residents, including Americans, have been among the victims of homicides and kidnappings in the border region. In its effort to combat violence, the government of Mexico has deployed military troops in various parts of the country. U.S. citizens are urged to cooperate with official checkpoints when traveling on Mexican highways.
Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades.
More on the unraveling situation at
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p...a/pa_3028.html
Looks like the plan is to cut off the cash at the lower levels.
Soldiers, Police Occupy Two Mexican Cities
Mexico, May 14 (Prensa Latina) Over 2,700 strongly-armed soldiers, sailors and policemen occupied Wednesday the cities of Culiacan and Novolato, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, to stop the wave of violence gripping this country.
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The contingent is made up of 1,433 soldiers, 500 sailors, 740 federal policemen and 50 agents of the Republic's Public Prosecution Office, who came in armored vehicles and airplanes to support the two municipalities.
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp...7D&language=EN
Mexico, May 15 (Prensa Latina) The Mexican army, backed up by the police, closed down 26 money exchange places in the state of Sinaloa, for suspected links with drug trafficking, according to reports from Culiacan.
http://www.plenglish.com/Article.asp...7D&language=EN
Meanwhile, the American public gets fed agenda-driven drivel like this
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4711745
HE Frag grenades, HE rounds for M203s and M60s don't come off of American gunstore shelves but I'll bet the serial numbers can be traced back to the Mexican Army.
James Verini - Arming the Drug Wars
James Verini - Arming the Drug Wars from Portfolio Magazine.
Quote:
Alfredo Beltrán Leyva was arrested on January 21 in Culiacán, capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The circumstances of his arrest lived up to his high standing in Mexico’s criminal underground, caught, as he was, driving a BMW S.U.V. in which federal police found eight pistols, an AK-47 assault rifle, and two suitcases containing about $900,000 in cash. Until his arrest, Beltrán Leyva was a top lieutenant in what may be the most profitable and far-reaching drug-trafficking organization in the world: the Sinaloa cartel, presided over by Joaquín Guzmán, often referred to as Mexico’s Pablo Escobar. Beltrán Leyva—known as El Mochomo after a vicious night-crawling ant—is thought by police to have been a Guzmán favorite, carrying out multiple murders while moving tons of drugs and millions of dollars for him.
The day after Beltrán Leyva’s arrest, federal police raided two mansions in Mexico City. They nabbed 11 members of his hit squad and discovered an arsenal including dozens of high-powered rifles, fragmentation grenades, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and Kevlar vests stamped FEDA. The police believe this stands for Fuerzas Especiales de Arturo, or Arturo’s Special Forces, a reference to Alfredo’s older brother, who ranks even higher in Guzmán’s organization.
State of Siege: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
State of Siege: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
By John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, Small Wars Journal
State of Siege: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (Full PDF Article)
Quote:
Mexico is under siege, and the barbarians are dangerously close to breaching the castle walls. Responding to President Felipe Calderon’s latest drug crackdown, an army of drug cartels has launched a vicious criminal insurgency against the Mexican state. So far, the conflict has killed over 1,400 Mexicans, 500 of them law enforcement officers. No longer fearing retaliation, cartel gunmen assault soldier and high-ranking federale alike. The criminal threat is not only a threat to public order but to the state. A top-ranking Mexican intelligence official has noted in interview that criminal gangs pose a national security threat to the integrity of the state. Cartels are even trying to take over the Mexican Congress by funding political campaigns, CISEN director Guillero Valdes alleged. Should Mexico’s gangs cement their hold further, Mexico could possibly become a criminal-state largely controlled by narco-gangs. This is not just a threat to Mexico, however.
As the intensity of the violence grows, so does the possibility that Tijuana and Juarez’s high-intensity street warfare will migrate north. Recent cartel warfare in Arizona indicates that America has become a battleground for drug cartels clashing over territory, putting American citizens and law enforcement at risk. But the northward migration of cartel warfare is not the worst consequence of Mexico’s criminal insurgency. A lawless Mexico will be a perfect staging ground for terrorists seeking to operate in North America. American policymakers must act to protect our southern flank...
LA Times - In Mexico, a police victory against smuggling brings deadly revenge
LA Times - In Mexico, a police victory against smuggling brings deadly revenge
Quote:
Juan Jose Soriano, deputy commander of the Tecate Police Department, helped U.S. authorities find a drug-smuggling tunnel. The next morning, gunmen shot him 45 times in his bedroom.
It just gets better and better..
..south of the border, while the rest of the country remains engrossed in the Madonna/Guy Ritchie divorce. :wry:
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_10741408
JUAREZ -- A shootout with the Mexican army left two men dead and another in custody late Wednesday in Juárez as the violence continued in the city.
http://www.kveo.com/news/local/31147224.html
A gun battle, south of the border in Mexico involving grenades and assault weapons, kills and wounds several. These are pictures from the scene, courtesy of Mexican newspaper, "Expreso Matamoros". As you can see military officials around a home and on the streets, heavily-armed.
Our News Center 23's Kenny Lopez was at the scene, where it all happened, and he now has the story from the Browsnville/Matamoros International Bridge.
See also
http://www.newschannel5.tv/2008/10/1...e-in-Matamoros
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/wo...html?ref=world
Two men attacked the United States Consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey early Sunday morning, but damage was minimal and no injuries were reported, the authorities said. One man fired at the office and another lofted a grenade that did not explode, officials said. The F.B.I. will lead an investigation into the attack. Although there were no immediate suspects, speculation fell on narcotics traffickers.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g...EFfHAD93RFO200
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. State Department has added the border city of Nogales to its list of places in Mexico where American travelers should be wary because of increasing violence.
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"Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have taken on the characteristics of small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and, on occasion, grenades," the alert said.
Now it's just become another Tarantino movie
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- Ten suspected drug dealers have been killed in a gunbattle with police in northern Mexico across the border from Arizona, authorities said.
Four officers were wounded in the battle Thursday in Nogales in the state of Sonora, according to Inspector David Palomares of the federal police. Police said they detained one suspect as he tried to flee.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/am....drug.killing/
ROSARITO BEACH, Mexico, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Mexican officials say federal army troops have arrived in Baja California to battle a relentless wave of drug gang slayings in the state's border towns.
The troops took up positions Tuesday in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, to help local police curb the violence, which by some estimates has claimed at least 140 lives since Sept. 26 in and around Tijuana, The San Diego Times-Union reported.
Rosarito Beach officials said they have asked the federal government for even more assistance. Mexican military officials wouldn't say exactly how many troops have been deployed to the state, but at least 50 soldiers had arrived by noon Tuesday, the newspaper said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/10/...3271224697166/
23rd Regiment Motorized Cavalry lost?
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.31.2008
Seven armed Mexican soldiers aboard a military Humvee were taken into custody early Friday morning on the Arizona side of the U.S-Mexican border near Yuma in what officials called *coff, coff* an unintentional and non-hostile incursion.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/265093.php
Sounds like another delivery escort got caught. Meanwhile, on the strategic side...
http://www.haber27.com/news_detail.php?id=15275
Two senior officials in a major Mexican anti-narcotics agency have been charged with passing information to a drug cartel in return for millions of dollars.
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Even better, when US personnel are put at risk:
Mexican media also reported a protected witness has told authorities that he spied for the Beltran Leyvas on US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents while employed as a criminal investigator at the US Embassy in Mexico City.
DEA's intelligence chief Anthony Placido said he could not confirm that the embassy had been infiltrated, adding it was too early to pull out undercover agents for fear their identities may have been compromised, AFP reported.
Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency - John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, Defense and the National Interest
Quote:
Grenades are thrown at popular gatherings. Mutilated corpses flood the morgues. Heavily armed gunmen blast police to shreds with high-powered automatic weapons. Just another day in Iraq or Afghanistan? No-all of the events described occur regularly in Mexico. Our southern neighbor is imploding under the weight of a criminal insurgency just as dangerous any crew of bomb-tossing jihadists–an insurgency that may soon envelop our borders.
Mexico has always struggled with crime and corruption, but its present troubles can be traced to the mid-90s downfall of the Colombian cartels. Those mega-cartels, epitomized by the excess of Pablo Escobar, directly threatened the Colombian state and lost. As nature abhors a vacuum, the gap was filled by Mexican drug cartels bolstered by gargantuan drug profits. These cartels burrowed into the superstructure of the Mexican state, corrupting the poorly paid civil servants and police officers that make up the Mexican bureaucracy. Those who refused to take a bribe earned a bullet to the brain for their scruples. The cartel evolution in political and financial affairs was matched by a rise in military power, as the narco-gangs built up a capable cadre of enforcers poached from the Mexican military’s Special Forces. These men, known as the Zetas, enabled the cartels to gain a tactical advantage against the poorly equipped Mexican local and state police.
Worst of all, the sheer size of the black economy–$40 billion as estimated by Stratfor’s George Friedman–strangles legitimate enterprise and concentrates power in the hands of a few narco-warlords. These criminal enterprises amass power and legitimacy as the Mexican state loses the trust of its citizens. As a result, Mexico’s periphery has become a lawless wasteland controlled largely by the drug cartels, but the disorder is rapidly spreading into the interior. In a cruel parody of the “ink-blot” strategy employed by counterinsurgents in Iraq, ungoverned spaces controlled by insurgents multiply as the territorial fabric of the Mexican state continues to dissolve...