BajaNomad - Drug Gangs Attack Army Garrisons in North-Central Mexico

Drug Gangs Attack Army Garrisons in North-Central Mexico

BajaNews - 4-1-2010 at 06:10 AM

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/01/world/main6352799....

April 1, 2010

(AP) Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers.

The attempts to blockade soldiers inside their bases - part of seven near-simultaneous attacks across two northern states - appeared to mark a serious escalation in Mexico's drug war, in which cartel gunmen attacked in unit-size forces armed with bulletproof vehicles, dozens of hand grenades and assault rifles.

While drug gunmen frequently shoot at soldiers on patrol, they seldom target army bases, and even more rarely attack in the force displayed during the confrontations Tuesday in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon - areas that have seen a surge of bloodshed in recent months.

The violence mainly involves a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas, a gang of hit men. The cartel - which has apparently formed an alliance with other cartels seeking to exterminate the Zetas - has been warning people in the region with a series of banners and e-mails that the conflict would get worse over the next two to three months.

Gunmen staged seven separate attacks on the army, including three blockades, Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said Wednesday. He called the attacks "desperate reactions by criminal gangs to the progress being made by federal authorities" against Mexico's drug cartels.

Villegas said gunmen parked trucks and SUVs outside a military base in the border city of Reynosa trying to block troops from leaving, sparking a gun battle with soldiers. At the same time, gunmen blocked several streets leading to a garrison in the nearby border city of Matamoros.

Another gang of armed men opened fire from several vehicles on soldiers guarding a federal highway in General Bravo, in Nuevo Leon state.

Troops fought back, killing 18 gunmen, wounding two and detaining seven more suspects. One soldier suffered slight injuries.

Soldiers also seized 54 rifles, 61 hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, eight homemade explosive devices and six bulletproofed vehicles used by the attackers.

Mexico's northern states are under siege from the escalating violence involving drug gangs.

The U.S. consulate in the northern city of Monterrey warned American citizens who may be traveling for Easter week about recent battles in the states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Durango. The consulate said U.S. citizens traveling by road from Monterrey to Texas "should be especially vigilant."

One of the clashes between soldiers and gunmen killed two gunmen on the highway connecting Monterrey and Reynosa, which is across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Less than two hours before that shootout, Nuevo Leon Gov. Rodrigo Medina had assured citizens that authorities regained control over the state's highways.

"I've found the highways calm. We ask that if citizens have plans to go out and enjoy these vacations, they should do so," Medina said.

Also on Wednesday, authorities in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco announced that the nephew of one of Mexico's most-wanted drug gang leaders was captured together with a police chief accused of protecting a notorious cartel in a key port city.

Federal police detained Roberto Rivero Arana, who identified himself as the nephew of reputed Zetas gang leader Heriberto Lazcano, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

He was arrest along with Daniel Perez, the acting police chief of Ciudad del Carmen, an oil hub in neighboring Campeche state. The statement alleged Perez received 200,000 pesos ($16,000) a month for protecting the Zetas.

The arrests come as the Zetas are under pressure from a bloody turf war with their former ally, the Gulf cartel. Authorities blame that fight for contributing to a surge of violence in Mexico's northeastern border states north of Tabasco and Campeche.

Perez was acting chief pending a permanent appointment, Ciudad del Carmen Mayor Aracely Escalante said Wednesday.

"He's an agent who had been with the police force long before we took over the town government," Escalante said. "We had given him our trust."

The two men were found with 10 assault rifles, a grenade, ammunition, drugs, police uniforms and worker suits with the logo of Mexico's state oil company, Pemex, the Attorney General's Office said.

Last week, Tabasco Gov. Andres Granier warned that the arrests of several suspected Zetas over the past several months could stoke turf battles in his region. He asked the federal government to send troops.

Meanwhile, the Mexican government announced that federal police will take over the anti-crime campaign currently headed by the army in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez.

The army deployment has come under criticism from those who say soldiers are not trained for police work, and complaints they conducted illegal searches and detentions. But perhaps more important is the fact that killings have continued apace, even with troops in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas.

An unspecified number of soldiers will remain in Juarez to help combat drug gang violence that killed more than 2,600 people last year, and 500 more so far this year in the city of 1.3 million.

Starting Thursday, "the Mexican army will start gradually transferring responsibility for public safety to civilian authorities, to federal authorities at the beginning and gradually to state and local" forces, the Interior Department said in a news release.

The statement said 1,000 federal officers will be added to the police deployment in the city, bringing the number of federal agents to 4,500.

More than 7,000 troops had arrived in Juarez by mid-2009.

The department said the change was part of a new strategy to focus on social programs as an answer to the continuing violence.

Elsewhere, four severed human heads were found early Wednesday in Apatzingan, a town in the western state of Michoacan. Residents found the heads, with eyes still blindfolded, lined up at the foot of a monument along with a threatening message, state prosecutors said.

In Morelia, the Michoacan state capital, police reported finding the bodies of three young men who had been shot to death. The bodies had messages stuck to their chests with knives, The contents of the messages were not released.

Police in the border city of Nogales reported finding the bullet-ridden bodies of three men, including a city transport official, on a rural road along with three burned-out vehicles.

Wednesday marked the beginning of Mexico's Easter Week vacation, and police in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero reported that gunmen had held up two motorists on the highway leading to the resort of Acapulco. The gunmen stole the victims' vehicles, but they were not injured.

bajario - 4-1-2010 at 06:39 AM

Looks like attacking the bases failed miserably. Maybe they should try again.

WOW!

Dave - 4-1-2010 at 10:13 AM

Don't quite know what to make of this. It's one thing to ambush cops but a garrisoned army platoon?

I doubt these guys were on a suicide mission. Either bad intel or poor planning but regardless, someone is deserving of a Darwin award.

DENNIS - 4-1-2010 at 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave
Don't quite know what to make of this. It's one thing to ambush cops but a garrisoned army platoon?

I doubt these guys were on a suicide mission. Either bad intel or poor planning but regardless, someone is deserving of a Darwin award.

It's an army of expendables. I doubt they mourn their dead.

JESSE - 4-1-2010 at 12:53 PM

18 dead? they should definately do it more often.

arrowhead - 4-1-2010 at 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bajario
Looks like attacking the bases failed miserably. Maybe they should try again.

You guys are reading this wrong. This is an old military tactic to force your enemy to withdraw back to more fortified positions and put them on the defensive. This gets more military off the streets, which is what the narcos want.

Study the rationale for Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Tokyo early in WWII. The purpose of the raid was not to capture Tokyo, but to force Japan to withdraw its assets and place them closer to home. The strategy worked. The 18 narcos who were killed may have been stupid, but the people who planned it were shrewd.

What is significant is that the narcos are using coordinated attacks and sound military strategies. They are evolving from gangs to organized fighting units. Study how the last Mexican revolution started 100 years ago. Be afraid, Jesse. Be very afraid.

[Edited on 4-1-2010 by arrowhead]

Bajahowodd - 4-1-2010 at 03:30 PM

An interesting and apt observation. However, is it possible that you give too much credit to the "brains" of the operation? Just wouldn't think that the thugs would be reading up on military history and strategy. I'm thinking that it may also be possible that the thugs got a tip that the garrison would be almost deserted at a certain time and took a risk. But then, what do I know?

JESSE - 4-1-2010 at 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by arrowhead

Quote:

Originally posted by bajario
Looks like attacking the bases failed miserably. Maybe they should try again.

Jajajajaja!!! yeah right, it worked, 18 killed, probably 20 wounded. Anyways, this wasn't an attack, this was a desperate attempt at rescuing a very important drug lord who got arrested. Obviously it failed miserably.

By the way, this was done by the Zetas, they are fighting for their survival as they are being killed by the military and their enemies.

robrt8 - 4-1-2010 at 08:20 PM

Quote:

Study the rationale for Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Tokyo early in WWII. The purpose of the raid was not to capture Tokyo, but to force Japan to withdraw its assets and place them closer to home. The strategy worked. The 18 narcos who were killed may have been stupid, but the people who planned it were shrewd.

What is significant is that the narcos are using coordinated attacks and sound military strategies. They are evolving from gangs to organized fighting units. Study how the last Mexican revolution started 100 years ago. Be afraid, Jesse. Be very afraid.

[Edited on 4-1-2010 by arrowhead]

That wasn't the purpose of the Doolittle raid. Where did you get this from?
It was an attempt to boost morale at home, a publicity stunt.

You should be very afraid. Afraid of that voice in your head that tells others to be afraid.

arrowhead - 4-1-2010 at 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by robrt8
It was an attempt to boost morale at home, a publicity stunt.

You should be very afraid. Afraid of that voice in your head that tells others to be afraid.

I beg to differ. No military commander would stage an attack, risk men and assets, merely to boost morale at home. How would you explain that to the families of the men who died in the raid? How would that improve their morale? Prior to the Doolittle raid, Japan was convinced it was invulnerable to attack. After the attack, the Japanese recalled some fighting units back to the home islands for defense. The Fast Carrier Task Force, consisting of six carriers under Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, had inflicted serious losses on the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean. After the Doolittle Raid, Nagumo's task force was recalled to Japan, relieving the pressure on the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean. The Japanese Navy also was embarassed for the fact that an American carrier task force had approached the Japanese Home Islands in a manner similar to that on Pearl Harbor, and then escaped unpunished. Because they were land-based bombers that carried out the attack, this confused the Japanese war planners about the source of the attack. This confusion and an assumption that Japan was vulnerable to air attack caused Admiral Yamamoto to decide to seize Midway Island. This resulted in the decisive Battle of Midway, in which the US changed the balance of power in the Pacific.

You should try to get your information from somewhere other than the guy on the next barstool.

JESSE - 4-2-2010 at 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by arrowhead

Quote:

Originally posted by robrt8
It was an attempt to boost morale at home, a publicity stunt.

You should be very afraid. Afraid of that voice in your head that tells others to be afraid.

I beg to differ. No military commander would stage an attack, risk men and assets, merely to boost morale at home.

It appears arrowhead knows better than Franklin D. Roosevelt and the then Joint Chiefs of Staff, who actually started the idea. :lol:

ligui - 4-2-2010 at 05:37 AM

Arrowhead , you live in a very small world , :spingrin:

keep up the good jokes . Wish you were on the joint chiefs of staff , we'd really have something to watch.

:lol:

Cartels attack Mexican army

BajaNews - 4-2-2010 at 06:20 AM

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100402/NEWS/10040991...

Open warfare between drug cartels, government possible

By Christopher Sherman and Alexandra Olson
April 2, 2010

REYNOSA, Mexico | In a ratcheting up of tactics in a long, bloody war, drug cartel gunmen made seven especially brazen assaults on Mexican soldiers in one day this week, throwing roadblocks near army garrisons and spraying checkpoints with automatic weapons fire.

The apparently coordinated assaults raise the prospect that parts of Mexico could be descending into open warfare between the cartels and the government.

Drug bosses appeared to have little to show for Tuesday’s attacks near the Texas border except a body count for their own side: 18 attackers dead. The military said its own casualties were limited to one soldier with a wounded toe.

But there have been more attacks since, and the battles have shown that gang henchmen are as well armed, if not as well trained, as the soldiers. Armored vehicles, explosive devices and grenade launchers were among the items the military seized.

The attacks are occurring as two cartels are engaged in a violent power struggle of their own. Experts on the drug war say drug lords are trying to get military patrols out of the way of the gangs’ increasingly bloody battle for trafficking routes in the northern border states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.

“There does seem to be a shift in what’s permissible to the cartels. The army used to be off limits,” said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “There is an escalation in what the drug trafficking organizations are willing to do, but it’s hard to tell if it’s a permanent change in strategy.”

The battles climaxed Tuesday with seven assaults against army positions that left 18 attackers dead across Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.

The first came when gunmen ambushed soldiers on patrol between Matamoros and the border city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas. An hour later, cartel gunmen used trucks and cars to blockade a garrison in Matamoros and the main army base in Reynosa.

Troops were ambushed six more times throughout the region, including once in Reynosa when soldiers rushed to check reports of another blockade near the offices of Mexico’s state oil company. In each of the two deadliest battles, five gunmen were killed.

“What we saw ... over the past couple of days is definitely an escalation in tactics,” said Alex Posey, a tactical analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.

“When they have engaged the military patrols (previously), it’s been a shoot-and-run scenario. Maybe they throw a hand grenade and use small arms fire,” Posey said.

The battles indicate that at present, cartels are no real match for Mexico’s army — even when soldiers can’t call reinforcements from nearby army bases.

“This proves that (soldiers) are tactically superior to the cartel henchmen,” Posey said. Soldiers “were able to defeat pretty decisively an ambush on their locations. It actually appears like it was a botched operation from the cartels.”

The cartels do match Mexico’s military in firepower: Soldiers confiscated more than 50 assault rifles, 61 grenades and eight homemade explosive devices, as well as grenade launchers and six armored vehicles.

The explosives underscore concerns that drug lords may turn to bombings. E-mails and other intercepted communication indicate that the cartels are seeking explosives for attacks, possibly on buildings or along roadsides, according to a federal intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release sensitive information.

In February, assailants stole a tractor-trailer carrying 18 tons of industrial explosives in the northern state of Coahuila, although it was later abandoned on the side of a road as federal police hunted for it.

“The explosives that they have seized have been relatively crude and unsophisticated,” Posey said. “But as with any bomb maker there is going to be a learning curve. The fact that we are starting to see (explosives) pop up and becoming more visible is definitely concerning.”

Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said the cartels’ increasingly aggressive tactics are “desperate reactions by criminal gangs to the progress made by federal authorities.”

The government has arrested several top drug lords and their lieutenants since President Felipe Calderon deployed troops and federal police across the country more than three years ago to wrest territory from the cartels.

The human cost has been high: Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed 17,900 lives. Killings of police and journalists are common, and gang members have resorted to especially brutal tactics such as decapitations and killing their enemies’ relatives in hopes of intimidating any who would oppose them.

The cartels have been battling not only authorities but each other, competing for turf and drug routes. Much of the current violence centers on a split between the powerful Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas.

The Gulf cartel has apparently formed an alliance with other cartels seeking to exterminate the Zetas. Through banners and e-mails, it has warned residents not to leave their homes, saying the conflict will get worse.

“With the crime, we can’t do anything. We have a lot of fear of a stray bullet,” said a woman who sells roast chicken from her dirt-floor home next the main army base in Reynosa.

The woman, too terrified to give her name two days after gunmen blockaded the base, said her children are forbidden to leave the house except for school. She won’t let her 13-year-old daughter return to her job bagging groceries, even though the family desperate needs the money.

“When the children go to school, I’m scared that they’re not going to come back,” she said. “I want to go to church to pray for help but I can’t leave.”

Gunmen kept up the fight Thursday, blockading roads again in Reynosa. One attacker was killed in a shootout between soldiers and armed men in the city’s main Hidalgo Boulevard, according to the state government. Farther south in the port city of Tampico, gunmen ambushed a state police checkpoint, killing a commanding officer and wounding another policeman and bystander.

Mexican cities near the eastern end of the U.S. border had until recently been calm while drug violence claimed thousands of lives to the west. That started changing recently with the breakup of the Zetas-Gulf alliance.

The feud escalated when a member of the Zetas was killed in Reynosa in January, perhaps because he was in the Gulf cartel’s territory without properly announcing himself. Battles ensued when the Gulf cartel refused to hand over the man responsible to the Zetas, U.S. officials have said.

arrowhead - 4-2-2010 at 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BajaNews
The attacks are occurring as two cartels are engaged in a violent power struggle of their own. Experts on the drug war say drug lords are trying to get military patrols out of the way of the gangs’ increasingly bloody battle for trafficking routes in the northern border states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.

Ya te dije, Jesse. Ya te dije.

arrowhead - 4-2-2010 at 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ligui
Arrowhead , you live in a very small world , :spingrin:

keep up the good jokes . Wish you were on the joint chiefs of staff , we'd really have something to watch.

:lol:

Jeeze, you'd think a person with the magnitude of your financial losses in Mexico would be a little more humble and contrite about being able to successfully analyze a situation.

However, if you happen to have any evidence which contradicts my statements about the purpose of the raid on Tokyo, now is the time to post it. Evidence is things like historical documents, statements of the parties involved...things like that. Posting happy faces is not really a good debating tool.
:rolleyes:

ligui - 4-2-2010 at 12:27 PM

You sure are easy to bait arrowhead , :lol:

Lots of ligui

JESSE - 4-2-2010 at 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by arrowhead

Quote:

Ya te dije, Jesse. Ya te dije.

Utter nonsense.

Bajahowodd - 4-2-2010 at 03:11 PM

The weird, but sad aspect to your proposal is that (even if it's sarcastic), in the big picture, invading Mexico would actually have beneficial results for both US and Mexican citizens. But, invading ones neighbor looks like bad sport. Especially since that neighbor has many cultural similarities, especially Christian religious values. Ah. Too similar. Much easier to go after a straw man half a world away, mostly because their culture and religion are foreign to the majority of Americans.