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Posts Tagged border war
Fast and Furious Redux
From Ammoland:
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a series of whistleblower documents that raise the ghosts of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) ill-fated Operation Fast & Furious. That was the Department of Justice (DOJ) operation that allowed firearms to be illegally smuggled across the U.S. border to Mexico, except once they crossed, they were never tracked.
One of those illegally-trafficked firearms was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
Gun Manufacturers Want Mexican Lawsuit Dismissed
From Reuters:
A U.S. judge on Tuesday questioned whether allowing Mexico to sue U.S. gun manufacturers for facilitating the trafficking of weapons to drug cartels would open the door to other countries suing them, including Russia over firearms used by Ukrainians in the ongoing war.
Twelve States Back Foreign Country In Lawsuit Against American Businesses
From Guns.com:
The 26-page brief, submitted by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon, as well as the District of Columbia, supports a controversial $10 billion lawsuit brought by Mexico against some of the biggest names in guns including Barrett, Beretta, Century Arms, Colt, Glock, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson.Â
How To Deal With The Cartels
From The Federalist:
If the administration wants to go on the offense, it could take a few practical steps in the right direction. Adding more cartels to the list of transnational criminal organizations would allow us to squeeze them as much as possible financially. But it would not be enough, as Giovanni Falcone advises, to “follow the money.†The Insurrection Act, which the president has mentioned before, is another instrument that would be useful in this fight.
Because of the Posse Comitatus Act, our troops on the border operate in a passive, observe and report capacity. The Insurrection Act could remedy that problem. If it is “clearly lawful,†as University of Texas Law School professor Stephen I. Vladeck writes that it is, for the president to use the act in immigration matters, then surely that lawfulness extends to border security. “And although Congress in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibited use of the federal military for domestic law enforcement,†Vladeck writes, “the Insurrection Act was always understood as the principal exception to that general rule.â€
Border Patrol Helicopter Takes Gunfire Near Mexican Border
From Business Insider:
“The rounds penetrated and damaged the aircraft, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing,” Lee told Reuters. The pilot was not injured and no one on the ground was affected by the emergency landing, she said.
Cartel Assassin Admits to 30 Murders in USA
From US News:
Investigators have confirmed that Martinez is responsible for a 2006 double-homicide in Marion County, Fla., a March homicide in Lawrence County, Ala., and at least 10 other killings in California, according to sheriff’s officials.
Martinez, a U.S. citizen, told investigators that he committed those murders and more than a dozen others as an enforcer for multiple Mexican drug lords, according to Lawrence County Sheriff’s Capt. Tim McWhorter.
8 Murdered In Monterrey
From Borderland Beat:
Unofficially, the dead were identified in the news report as Alfredo Flores, 34, owner of the business, Juana Maria Villegas, 32, José Alfredo Flores Villegas, 15 and Osiris Michelle Flores Villegas, 8. Two other unidentified male victims were killed, and a seventh victim was wounded and taken for medical attention.
US Agents Banned From Using Firearms While Assisting Mexican Authorities
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 6/Dec/2012 08:42
From Fox News:
U.S. agents on assignment in Mexico, where they are helping the local authorities go after violent drug cartels, are not allowed to carry weapons for their own protection, a situation that one lawmaker says could turn into “another Benghazi.â€
President Obama gave tacit approval to Mexico’s prohibition against U.S. agents carrying weapons in March 2011, following the ambush killing of ICE agent Jaime Zapata and the wounding of his partner, Victor Avilla.
Statement on Investigation into Shooting of Border Patrol Agents
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 2/Oct/2012 16:50
Statement on Investigation into Shooting of Border Patrol Agents
Oct. 2, 2012
The FBI and the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office are conducting a joint investigation into the shooting of Border Patrol agents near Naco, Arizona, on Tuesday, October 2, 2012, in the early morning hours. One agent died from his injuries and another, who sustained non-life threatening wounds, was airlifted to a local hospital. The investigation remains ongoing.
How the U.S. is Fighting the Zeta Cartel
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 31/Aug/2012 16:44
From: Danger Room
The violence in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon began Tuesday morning and continued into Wednesday. By the end, 30 bodies had turned up around the state with bullet wounds or had been dismembered. The cause was attributed to a seemingly never-ending war between the Zeta drug cartel and their rivals. And that may only be a prelude. Miguel Angel Treviño, or “Z-40,” has seized the leadership of the cartel from longtime chief Heriberto Lazcano, according to the Associated Press, which describes the new boss as a “brutal assassin” who favors cooking his enemies inside burning oil drums.
For those unnerving reasons, the Zetas have come to define the violence of the drug war, and have lead the U.S. and Mexican governments scrambling to fight them. Arguably Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, the Zetas are now estimated to operate in half of the country, if not more, and have expanded into Guatemala. Aside from unleashing violence, extortion and kidnapping across much of their territory, the Zetas are responsible for the February 2011 death of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon deployed 200 Marines to Guatemala in a sign the U.S. is getting more direct in going after the Zetas. The Pentagon stresses that the Marines will play a secondary role to the Guatemalans and are limited to merely tracking drug traffickers. But still, that’s a lot of Marines now operating in territory shared by the cartel. The U.S. also considers the operation to be only one part of a much larger strategy. Here are five aspects of that war.
Four Killed in Drug Violence in Western Mexico
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 18/Mar/2012 09:46
From: Borderland Beat
Suspected drug cartel enforcers killed four men and hung two of the victims’ bodies from a bridge in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, prosecutors said.
The state Attorney General’s Office said all four of the victims, none of whom were identified, bore signs of torture.
Two of the bodies were hung Friday afternoon from a bridge that spans a highway near the town of Vista Hermosa, not far from Michoacan’s border with Jalisco state.
Another victim whose throat had been slit was found dumped under the same bridge, while the fourth body was discovered floating in a river near the highway, prompting authorities to suspect a connection between the four homicides.
Polarization and Sustained Violence in Mexico’s Cartel War
Posted by Gary in Threat Watch on 24/Jan/2012 22:23
From: Stratfor
As we noted in last year’s annual cartel report, Mexico in 2010 bore witness to some 15,273 deaths in connection with the drug trade. The death toll for 2010 surpassed that of any previous year, and in doing so became the deadliest year ever in the country’s fight against the cartels. But in the bloody chronology that is Mexico’s cartel war, 2010’s time at the top may have been short-lived. Despite the Mexican government’s efforts to curb cartel-related violence, the death toll for 2011 may have exceeded what had been an unprecedented number.
According to the Mexican government, cartel-related homicides claimed around 12,900 lives from January to September — about 1,400 deaths per month. While this figure is lower than that of 2010, it does not account for the final quarter of 2011. The Mexican government has not yet released official statistics for the entire year, but if the monthly average held until year’s end, the overall death toll for 2011 would reach 17,000. Though most estimates put the total below that, the actual number of homicides in Mexico is likely higher than what is officially reported. At the very least, although we do not have a final, official number — and despite media reports to the contrary — we can conclude that violence in Mexico did not decline substantially in 2011.
Mexican Blogger Decapitated
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 10/Nov/2011 02:28
“The moderator of a popular Mexican social network has been murdered, allegedly for tipping off the authorities about the local drug cartel.
Nicknamed “Rascatripas†or “Scraper†(literally “Fiddlerâ€) on the network Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, the 35-year-old appears to have been handcuffed, tortured, decapitated and dumped beside a statue of Christopher Columbus one mile from the Texas border.
Below the man’s body was a partially obscured and blood-stained blanket. Written on the blanket in black ink: “Hi I’m ‘Rascatripas’ and this happened to me because I didn’t understand I shouldn’t post things on social networks.â€
Social media has become an important means for ordinary Mexicans to strike back at the cartels. Civilians have taken to real-time reporting of trouble spots on the country’s dangerous northern highways. Using Twitter, locations of firefights between cartels and government security forces, or risky cartel checkpoints, are broadcast by volunteers to wired motorists.
“Do not be afraid to report,†said Anon4024 at Nuevo Laredo en Vivo earlier today. “This is how we citizens can make a difference in this city.â€