Poll: Few confident of border security

NF Reporter · 07-06-2007, 04:24 AM

AP - The public has little faith the government is adequately screening visitors to the country or could cope with an outbreak of an infectious disease, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Full Story...

waltky · 12-19-2007, 04:50 AM

Border Patrol Fires Tear Gas Into Mexico...

Rocks, Tear Gas in U.S.-Mexico Border War
Dec 17, 2007 - Border Patrol Fires Tear Gas, Pepper Spray Into Mexico in Response to Rock-Hurling Attackers

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Border Patrol agents are firing tear gas and powerful pepper-spray weapons across the border into Mexico to repel what the agency says are an increasing number of attacks by assailants hurling rocks, bottles and bricks. The counteroffensive has drawn complaints that innocent families are being caught in the crossfire. "A neighbor shouted, 'Stop it! There are children living here," said Esther Arias Medina, 41, who on Wednesday fled her Tijuana, Mexico, shanty with her 3-week-old grandson after the infant began coughing from smoke that seeped through the walls.

A helmeted agent on the U.S. side said nothing as he stood with a rifle on top of a 10-foot border fence next to the three-room home that Arias shares with six others. "We don't deserve this," Arias said. "The people who live here don't throw rocks. Those are people who come from the outside, but we're paying the price." Witnesses in Arias' hardscrabble neighborhood described eight attacks since August that involved tear gas or pepper spray, some that forced residents to evacuate. The Border Patrol says its agents have been attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period.

The agency's top official in San Diego, Mike Fisher, said agents are taking action because Mexican authorities have been slow to respond. When an attack happens, he said, American authorities often wait hours for them to come, and help usually never arrives. "We have been taking steps to ensure that our agents are safe," Fisher said. Mexico's acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has insisted that U.S. authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. He met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that counterattack, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico.

More ABC News: Rocks, Tear Gas in U.S.-Mexico Border War

waltky · 03-15-2008, 12:38 AM

Juarez is on the border...

33 bodies unearthed behind Mexico house
March 14, 2008 - Remain date back five years, officials say; House initially raided on March 1; Almost two tons of marijuana found in first raid; Ciudad Juarez site of drug cartel turf wars

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Mexican investigators found 19 more bodies buried in the backyard of a house in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, increasing the tally of corpses found there to 33, officials said Thursday. Federal agents began digging in the yard in the La Cuesta neighborhood on March 1, initially finding six dismembered bodies, Mexico's federal attorney general's office said in a statement.

The remains date back about five years, and all but three apparently are males, the statement said. The attorney general's office did not say how the victims died or who may have buried the bodies. In the initial raid, authorities found 3,740 pounds of marijuana in the house. Ciudad Juarez has been plagued by violence as Mexico's crackdown on powerful drug cartels stokes turf wars among traffickers who have been linked to hundreds of killings in the past two years.

Cartels frequently use "safe houses" in border cities to store drugs, house gunmen and dispose of dead rivals. In the nearby state capital Chihuahua City last month, federal agents found six bodies buried in a shallow grave at a house allegedly used by the Juarez cartel. In January 2004, police unearthed a grave containing 12 bodies in a Ciudad Juarez backyard.

33 bodies unearthed behind Mexico house - CNN.com

waltky · 05-18-2008, 12:52 AM

Kidnappings in Mexico...

7 Mexican tourists kidnapped on main highway to Acapulco
18 May 2008, Police say gunmen kidnapped seven Mexican tourists in a rare attack on a heavily-patrolled, four-lane highway leading into the Pacific coast resort town of Acapulco.

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Police in Mexico's southern Guerrero state say the seven men were kidnapped Saturday about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Acapulco.

One man escaped and told police that gunmen had stopped his companions' car and forced them into three vehicles in which they were traveling. Police found blood stains and 37 bullet holes in the victims' car.

Kidnappings and gun battles have plagued Acapulco in recent years, but they seldom occur on the main highway, where armed guards are stationed at many toll booths.

Source

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Drug war shutters businesses on Mexico border
Thu May 15, 2008 - A decade ago, economists hailed Tijuana as a place where cheap Mexican labor and U.S. financing could meet, attracting Asian firms eager to set up manufacturing plants to export to the United States.

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Now, that vision is slipping away, a victim of drug violence that has been exploding this side of the U.S.-Mexico border for the past three years. Once a freewheeling city that has served Americans cheap tequila since the U.S. prohibition era, Tijuana is at the center of a three-way drug war between rival gangs and Mexico's military. Drug-related murders are a daily occurrence.

The violence is scaring away tourists who came for everything from prostitutes and dental work to medicine. A lively artistic community is also dwindling. While most assembly-for-export businesses, or maquiladoras, continue to operate normally, drug violence is such that they risk losing new investment to competitors like China. Other businesses are seeing their livelihoods disappear.

Just a few years ago, downtown Tijuana was bustling and the main drag, Revolution Avenue, was a busy thoroughfare. But today, it is deserted, lined with "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs. "Many big companies are pulling out and many small companies are going bankrupt. Business isn't enough to even pay the rent for the shops and factory space," said Manuel Cesena, 57, who owns a shoe shop on Revolution Avenue.

MORE

waltky · 05-19-2008, 09:25 AM

Druglords killin' police...

Drug murderers drag police into the streets
Sunday 18th May, 2008 - In Mexico, eight men, including three local police officers, have been dragged from their homes and executed by heavily armed gangs.

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Men in camouflage uniforms drove into a border town in several pickup trucks and broke into several homes where they threatened families and killed the men with AK-47 rifles and handguns.

The murders in Villa Ahumada added to five recent killings in Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, and another three elsewhere in the state. It is believed the murders are related to the Government's stepped up fight against drug trafficking.

At stake is access to the world's biggest market for narcotics, most of which are carried through the border to the United States.

Drug murderers drag police into the streets

waltky · 05-22-2008, 10:55 PM

Mexican police sufferin' a heavy toll...

Mexico: Top police officer killed
May 22,`08 -- A top police official in Mexico was found dead in the trunk of a car in Mexico City along with another officer, authorities said.

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The bodies of Victor Enrique Payan and another officer were found with a note attached to them warning others not to join the Sinaloa drug gang in northern Mexico, El Universal reported Thursday.

Numerous Mexican police officers have been implicated in drug cartels despite recent efforts by the Mexican government to crack down on the gangs.

The head of Mexico's federal police force was killed this month by a group of gunmen, police officials said. Edgar Millan Gomez was shot several times outside his Mexico City apartment building.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent Mexican police to several border towns in recent months to combat the growing violence associated with drug trafficking.

Source

waltky · 05-27-2008, 01:04 AM

Brazen druglords publish police targets...

Drug gang publishes police hit list
May 27, 2008 - A DRUG gang has pinned up hit lists across a northern Mexican city that names police officers it wants to murder, law authorities have said.

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Police said they found three banners with the names of 21 state police officers hung on road bridges on Sunday in Chihuahua city, the capital of Chihuahua state. The banners displayed the names of the police in black ink and were signed by the Gente Nueva (New People) gang, a break-away group from the powerful Gulf cartel from eastern Mexico, a police spokesman said. Gente Nueva is a shadowy group that appeared in 2007 and which aims to counter the Gulf cartel with funding from rival gangs from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, US and Mexican anti-drug authorities say.

In January, drug gangs pinned a hit list to a police monument in Chihuahua's second-largest city, Ciudad Juarez, over the border from El Paso, Texas. They have so far killed half the 17 police on the list, despite a deployment of 3000 troops and 500 federal police across Chihuahua state. President Felipe Calderon has sent 25,000 troops and federal police to quell the drug war across Mexico since taking office in December 2006, making big narcotics seizures and arresting drug kingpins.

But violence is still rising as drug gangs fight each other and target troops and police officers. Gangland killings have surged in Mexico in recent weeks and some 1400 people have been killed in drug violence this year, up 50 per cent from this time in 2007. Drug violence killed more than 2500 people in 2007 as rival gangs fight over smuggling routes to the United States.

Drug gang publishes police hit list | NEWS.com.au

waltky · 05-29-2008, 12:02 AM

Mexico commits to war on drugs...

Mexico extends army's drugs fight
Wednesday, 28 May 2008 - The Mexican government says the army will be used for at least another two years in the fight against drug cartels.

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Around 25,000 troops are currently involved in a nationwide battle with the drug gangs, along with several thousand federal police officers. The Mexican Attorney General, Medina Mora, has said he sees no quick end to the violence. Nearly 1,400 people have died so far this year in drug gang related murders.

That is nearly 50% more compared with the same period last year. This year's total includes 450 police officers and other government officials. Mr Mora said the use of the army was working and that the power of the cartels was being curbed. He said the violence was a sign the cartels were fighting for control of what he called a smaller pie.

But others are more sceptical and say the cartels are far from being controlled. This week seven more police officers were murdered. Two weeks ago the director of Mexico's federal police was killed.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Mexico extends army's drugs fight

waltky · 06-01-2008, 12:05 AM

Must be open season on Americans south of the border...

US Can't Say if Mexico Has Prosecuted Killers of US Citizens
May 30, 2008 - Both the State and Justice Departments told Cybercast News Service this week that they have no information about whether Mexican authorities have arrested, prosecuted or convicted anyone for the murders of 128 Americans that the State Department reports took place in Mexico between Jan. 1, 2005 and December 31, 2007.

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On April 14, the State Department issued an alert, which remains current, warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" was taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico. "Dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped and/or murdered in Tijuana in 2007," says the alert. "In some cases, assailants have worn full or partial police or military uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles."

At a May 20 State Department press briefing, Cybercast News Service asked State Department Spokesman Sean McCormick how many Americans had in fact been murdered or kidnapped in the border region of Mexico in 2007. The department responded by posting a statement on its Web site and providing a link to its report of "non-natural deaths of Americans" around the world between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2007.

The report, which the State Department said "is based solely on cases reported by American citizens to our posts abroad," listed the deaths by country and where in a particular country the deaths happened. It also gave a cause of death. But it did not list the names, ages, or occupations of the victims, or any information about whether the government of the country where the "non-natural death" of an American had taken place had taken legal action pursuant to that death.

MORE

waltky · 06-11-2008, 03:17 AM

Journalist threatened...

Severed Head, Threat At Mexico Newspaper
June 9, 2008 - Journalist Warned: "You're Next" After Drug Trafficker's Head Shows Up In Newsroom

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A note threatening a Mexican journalist was found outside the office of a newspaper in southern Mexico on Monday, two days after someone left a severed head there. Tabasco state Attorney General Gustavo Rosario said the letter was directed at Juan Padilla, editor of El Correo de Tabasco, which recently carried reports about migrant smuggling and kidnapping in the area. "You are next," the note read.

The head of a man police identified as a low-level drug trafficker was found outside the offices on Saturday. Soldiers later located his body in another part of the city alongside a separate note that said, "This is what will happen to those who go around pointing fingers." International media rights group Reporters Without Borders issued a statement Monday condemning the threats. Media groups say Mexico is one of the world's most dangerous places to report, and journalists - especially those covering powerful drug cartels or official corruption - have been threatened, harassed, kidnapped and killed.

Also Monday, President Felipe Calderon held a previously scheduled meeting with representatives of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists to discuss ways to protect reporters. In a statement, Calderon's office said the president agreed with the group's proposal to make all attacks on journalists federal offenses and to push for more thorough investigations.

Severed Head, Threat At Mexico Newspaper, Journalist Warned: "You're Next" After Drug Trafficker's Head Shows Up In Newsroom - CBS News

See also:

Chertoff Says Border Will Be Secure 2 Years After Bush Leaves
June 10, 2008 Washington - Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Monday blamed tightened security on the U.S.-Mexico border for increased violence there, and he said the border probably will not be fully secured until 2011, two years after President Bush leaves office.

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"(Increased violence) is what typically happens when you start to enforce and make it harder to fight over the shrinking pie, so to speak, and who gets the best opportunity to exploit the additional space that's left," Chertoff said at a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday. "That's a good sign," he said. "The bad news is, it's created a lot of violence and created a lot of havoc, particularly in Mexico."

Chertoff added that quelling the violence will require working with the Mexican government - and millions of dollars from American taxpayers if Congress funds the Merida Initiative. The multi-year proposal would give Mexico $500 million and $50 million to Central America in 2008 to fight the drug cartels - another $450 million and $100 million respectively will be given for fiscal year 2009. "We have to recognize that both countries (U.S. and Mexico) have a common interest in securing the border," Chertoff said.

When asked by Cybercast News Service if the border will be secure by the end of the Bush administration, Chertoff was upbeat but implied that finishing the job will fall to the next president of the United States. "I think we will have made a dramatic amount of progress," he said. "I think if we continue on the course we've set now we can get the border secure ... sometime in 2011."

MORE

waltky · 07-03-2008, 12:04 AM

Merida anti-drug aid delayed...

Red tape may delay $400 million for Mexico drug war
WASHINGTON — July 2, 2008, White House says money probably won't reach the nation for months

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The Bush administration said Tuesday it would take months, and possibly longer, to deliver $400 million in emergency assistance to help Mexico combat murderous drug cartels, days after pressing Congress to urgently approve the money. Three senior Bush administration officials outlined various bureaucratic impediments to speedy delivery of assistance to bolster Mexican President Felipe Calderon's $4 billion, military-style campaign against drug traffickers. The cartels have killed more than 4,000 people over the past 21 months, including some 450 police officers, soldiers or government officials.

Challenges to implementing the first phase of the Merida Initiative include developing coordination between the Defense Department, the State Department and the Treasury; setting benchmarks for success; and prolonged procurements of military equipment such as helicopters and surveillance aircraft. "Both governments have seized a political moment to show solidarity, but the real planning for implementation has yet to take place," said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. "There was a real sense of urgency to show cooperation, without coordination on a long-term plan."

Staffers for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment about the potential delay in delivering U.S. assistance. But Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, said he was "personally outraged and deeply disappointed that the Bush administration was so obsessed with pandering to Mexico." "How soon can we repeal the spending?" he added. A Calderon spokesman had no comment.

No surprise

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Four men found decapitated as Mexico drug war rages
Wed Jul 2, 2008 - The severed heads of four men were found dumped on a Mexican street on Wednesday with a message accusing a drug gang kingpin of treachery, police said.

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Neighbors in the northern city of Culiacan found the men's bodies wrapped in plastic sheets and a blanket, with their heads stuffed into white plastic bags. An obscenity-laden note scrawled onto a piece of cardboard invited Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman -- the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel -- "to see what his stupid acts had caused."

Guzman, who is considered Mexico's most-wanted man, is battling a rival gang led by his one-time ally Arturo Beltran Leyva, whose hitmen reportedly killed one of Guzman's sons in May.

In a separate incident in the same city, police said they killed four suspected drug gang members in a shootout. More than 1,600 people have died so far this year in drug violence as gangs battle for control of lucrative trafficking routes and as the government has stepped up anti-smuggling operations by deploying thousands of army troops.

Four men found decapitated as Mexico drug war rages | International | Reuters

waltky · 07-08-2008, 12:59 AM

Now they burnin' people...

Charred bodies found on Tijuana street
7 July `08 - State attorney: Men shot dead early Monday morning and their corpses set on fire; The execution-style killings marked a resurgence in violence between cartels; 10 decapitated bodies, including Monday's victim, have been found

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Police on Monday found six charred bodies on a Tijuana street following a bloody weekend that left 14 people dead. Assistant Baja California state attorney Salvador Ortiz said the six unidentified men were shot dead early Monday morning and their corpses set on fire. The state attorney's office also reported another eight men killed over the weekend in separate attacks. The execution-style killings marked a resurgence in violence between feuding Tijuana drug cartels.

"It's a situation that obviously worries us," Ortiz said, counting up the weekend's toll on his fingers while speaking to reporters outside the city police station. One of burned bodies had been handcuffed, while others had their heads wrapped in plastic bags, Ortiz said. Ortiz said investigators still do not know if the weekend killings were related to the burned bodies. A Tijuana police officer is the chief suspect in a triple shooting over the weekend.

Also Monday, police in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa found the decapitated body of a man wrapped in a tarp and dumped on a street in the city of Culiacan. The head and a threatening note were found nearby inside a plastic bag, said a state police official on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the case.

Ten decapitated bodies, including Monday's victim, have been found throughout Culiacan in the past week. President Felipe Calderon has deployed 25,000 soldiers across the country to wrest back territory from drug gangs, which have responded with bold attacks on the military and police. More than 4,000 people have been killed in turf wars, assassinations and shootouts since December 2006, when Calderon took office.

Source

waltky · 07-10-2008, 05:14 AM

Kids caught up in drug war...

More kids caught in Mexico drug-war crossfire
Jul 10, `08 - Twelve-year-old Alexia Belen Moreno was afraid living in her father's house in Ciudad Juarez, where drug cartels are fighting a bloody war. She begged to move in with her mother just across the border in El Paso, Texas. Her parents agreed - but asked her to stay a few more weeks to finish school.

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Three days later, Alexia was shot in the head blocks from her home in broad daylight. Authorities believe she was caught in the crossfire when gunmen killed two men riding with her in a car. Alexia's death is part of an alarming trend of children dying in Mexico's drug wars. Mexican officials say they don't track the number of child deaths from drug-gang violence. But newspaper tallies find nearly 50 kids have been killed this year - and a code of ethics in which hit men took care to avoid harming children appears to be evaporating.

In one of the more brazen cases, gunmen targeting a Tijuana police commander in January also killed his wife and 11-year-old daughter. In the same month in the same city, a 4-year-old boy died when his parents, mistakenly identified, were attacked. In the northern city of Fresnillo last month, a 13-year-old boy was killed in a shootout. In Ciudad Juarez, details are murky of Alexia's death. Authorities haven't even determined the identities of the slain men with whom Alexia and two friends were riding on June 10, although they believe they were involved in the drug trade.

The other children ran to safety but are too afraid to talk with reporters or investigators. Alexia's family is also in hiding and has refused to cooperate with police. Her parents' only public remarks came at the girl's funeral. Lorena Melendez Torres said her daughter had asked to move to El Paso the Saturday before she was killed. "The only thing I want is justice, justice for my daughter. She was so innocent. She was just a child," Melendez said.

More My Way News - More kids caught in Mexico drug-war crossfire

waltky · 07-14-2008, 12:56 AM

Mexican violence killin' kids...

Mexico gunmen kill youths, take hostages
Sun Jul 13, 2008 - Gunmen killed eight youths and a police chief and took dozens of restaurant patrons hostage for hours in two attacks in the drug gang-ridden state of Sinaloa, officials said on Sunday.

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A group of hitmen sprayed four cars with bullets on a busy street in the city of Guamuchil in the early hours of Sunday, killing five young men and three female minors, a police source told Reuters. In an earlier attack on Saturday, six other armed men caused pandemonium in the Pacific port city of Mazatlan by taking refuge in a shopping mall to escape security forces after they shot dead local police chief Sixto Escobedo when he resisted their attempt to kidnap him.

The attackers, dressed in police uniforms, took some 40 people hostage in a restaurant inside the mall while they negotiated their escape with police. Drug gang killings in Mexico have soared to unprecedented levels, with some 1,700 people dead so far this year, as an army-led crackdown intensifies turf wars between rival gangs, whose hitmen are increasingly taking their battles public with daylight shootouts in busy streets.

President Felipe Calderon began his crackdown in late 2006 but opinion polls show many Mexicans worry he is failing to gain the upper hand on cartels, who have grown bold enough to post threats or recruiting advertisements on street banners. Hitmen, who are known to sometimes don police gear, often dump bodies with torture marks or severed heads in public, and while the vast majority of the victims are drug gang members, a few dozen civilians have been killed in street battles.

More Mexico gunmen kill youths, take hostages | International | Reuters

waltky · 07-16-2008, 11:31 PM

Fearless W tellin' `em MYOB...

World Court urges U.S. to halt Mexicans' executions
July 16, 2008 -- Bush administration argues World Court lacks jurisdiction in death penalty cases; World Court seeks to prevent imminent execution of five Mexicans; Court: U.S. should do everything in its power to halt executions until cases reviewed; "There undoubtedly is urgency," court's president says

Quote:

The U.N.'s highest court on Wednesday ordered U.S. authorities to do everything in their power to halt the executions of five Mexicans on death row in Texas until their cases are reviewed. The Bush administration has said the World Court does not have jurisdiction in the case. The ruling followed hastily convened hearings last month at which Mexico argued that the United States is defying a 2004 order by the International Court of Justice to review the cases of 51 Mexicans sentenced to death by state courts.

That order was based on the court's finding that the condemned prisoners had been denied the right to help from their consulate following their arrest. When the executions were cleared to go ahead despite that ruling, Mexico turned again to the court last month and asked the judges to issue an emergency injunction to stop the schedule of killings.

The World Court agreed Wednesday that it would consider Mexico's case and sought to prevent the imminent execution of five of the Mexicans. "There undoubtedly is urgency," said the court's president, Rosalyn Higgins. Higgins said U.S. authorities should "take all measures necessary to ensure that [the five Mexicans] are not executed pending judgment on the request for interpretation."

World Court urges U.S. to halt Mexicans' executions - CNN.com

waltky · 08-09-2008, 12:48 AM

Druglords makin' our national parks dangerous...

Mexican cartels running pot farms in U.S. national forest
August 8, 2008 -- Drug czar stands in pot garden: "These aren't Cheech and Chong plants"; Authorities say Mexican drug cartels send illegals to grow marijuana in forest; $1 billion worth of marijuana plants destroyed in Sequoia National Forest, cops say; "They're willing to kill anybody who gets in their way,"