"Mexico’s federal police and the army have played the leading roles in a war against drug cartels that has cost more than 22,700 lives since Calderon announced an anti-drug offensive in late 2006....
Why low-ball it?
--more--"
Didn't help.
"Mexican city shifts focus after blast; Drug cartels vow to kill more police" by Alicia A. Caldwell, Associated Press | July 18, 2010
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Mexican drug traffickers’ first car-bomb attack against police has revealed a new level of cold-blooded planning that is forcing this border city and security forces to change the way they confront violence.
Police said Friday that La Linea drug gang — the same group blamed for the March killing of a US Consulate employee and her husband — lured federal officers and paramedics to the site of a car bomb by dressing a bound, wounded man in a police uniform and calling in a false report of an officer shot.
The gang then exploded a car holding as much as 22 pounds of explosives, killing the decoy, a rescue worker, and a federal officer. A regional military commander said a cellphone might have been used to detonate the bomb.
The gang promised to strike again, with graffiti painted on the wall of a Ciudad Juárez shopping center. “What happened . . . is going to keep happening against all the authorities,’’ the message read. “We have more car bombs.’’
**********
Mayor José Reyes Ferriz said at least 14 police officers or other law enforcement officials have been killed in the past few weeks in and around the city....
Ciudad Juárez residents were emotionally shaken by the bombing, which scattered debris over a 300-yard radius and blew out the windows of a home.
Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, has become one of the most dangerous cities in the world, with more than 4,000 people killed since the beginning of 2009.
Police said Thursday’s attack was in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day.
Police said Acosta Guerrero, 35, was the “operations leader’’ of La Linea, which works for the Juárez drug cartel. He was responsible for at least 25 killings and ordered attacks on police.
Drug cartel battles have resulted in the deaths of about 25,000 people since late 2006 in Mexico.
While cartels have often used grenades and high-powered rifles against police and soldiers, Thursday’s attack was the first time a cartel has successfully used a sizable bomb against security forces.
Brigadier General Eduardo Zarate, the commander of the regional military zone, said as much as 22 pounds of explosives might have been used in the attack. Burned batteries connected to a mobile phone were found at the scene, he added.
Meanwhile, in the northeastern border city of Nuevo Laredo, 12 people were killed and 21 wounded in running gun battles between soldiers and cartel gunmen Friday.
Gunmen blocked some streets with hijacked vehicles at the height of the battles, which occurred in at least three points in the city, prompting the US Consulate to warn American citizens in the city to remain indoors....
--more--""Gunmen kill 17 at party in Mexico, police say" by Associated Press | July 19, 2010
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — Gunmen stormed a party in northern Mexico yesterday and massacred 17 people, authorities said.
The gunmen arrived at the party in Torreón in several cars and opened fire without saying a word, the Coahuila state attorney general’s office said in statement. At least 18 people were wounded.
Several of the victims were young and some were women, but their identities and ages had not yet been determined. Investigators had no suspects or information on a possible motive.
Police found more than 120 bullet casings at the scene.
Coahuila is among several northern states that have seen a sharp rise in drug-related violence that authorities attribute to a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former enforcers, known as the Zetas.
Related: Mexican Oil Siphoning Story Stinks
"Former" government commandos, huh?
Yeah, they are ALL GOVERNMENT SOMETHING!!!
In May, gunmen killed eight people at a bar in Torreón. Later that month, a television station and the offices of a local newspaper came under fire. A pregnant woman was wounded in the attack on the offices of Noticias de El Sol de la Laguna.
Across northern Mexico, there have been increasing reports of mass shootings at parties, bars, and rehab clinics.
In the worst such massacre this year, gunmen raided a drug rehab center in the northern city of Chihuahua and killed 19 people.
Also see: Mexican Drug Dealers Kill Clients
In January, gunmen barged into a private party in the border city of Ciudad Juárez and killed 15, many of them high school or university students. Relatives say it was a case of mistaken identity, while state officials believe someone at the party was targeted.
The massacre in Torreón came three days after the first successful car bombing by drug cartels introduced a new threat in Mexico’s raging drug war.
Drug gang members detonated the bomb after luring federal police and paramedics to the scene in Ciudad Juárez by shooting a bound man dressed in a police uniform and calling in a false report of a wounded officer. Three people were killed, including a doctor who had rushed to the scene to help.
Officials say 24,800 people have been killed in drug gang violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in December 2006.
That would mean over 2,000 in the last four days!
--more--"
And where are those weapons coming from, huh?
"Grenades from US in cartels’ arsenals; Devices are relics of the Cold War" by Nick Miroff, Washington Post | July 19, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Grenades made in the United States and sent to Central America during the Cold War have resurfaced as terrifying new weapons in almost weekly attacks by Mexican drug cartels.
Maybe the MILITARISM for EMPIRE wasn't such a good deal after all.
Sent a generation ago to battle communist revolutionaries in the jungles of Central America, US grenades are being diverted from dusty old armories and sold to criminal mafias, which are using them to destabilize the Mexican government and terrorize civilians, according to US and Mexican law enforcement officials.
The redeployment of US-made grenades by Mexican drug lords underscores the increasingly intertwined nature of the conflict, as President Felipe Calderon sends his soldiers out to confront gangs armed with a deadly combination of brand-new military-style assault rifles purchased in the United States and munitions left over from the Cold War.
Grenades have killed a relatively small number of the 25,000 people who have died since Calderon launched his US-backed offensive against the cartels. But the grenades pack a far greater psychological punch than the ubiquitous AK-47s and AR-15 rifles — they can overwhelm and intimidate outgunned soldiers and police while reminding ordinary Mexicans that the country is at war....
The majority of grenades have been traced to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, according to investigations by agents at the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and their Mexican counterparts. ATF has also found that almost 90 percent of the grenades confiscated and traced in Mexico are more than 20 years old.
The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush sent 300,000 hand grenades to friendly regimes in Central America to fight leftist insurgents in the civil wars of the 1980s and early 1990s, according to declassified military data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Federation of American Scientists.
Most Americans don't even know about the centuries of U.S. slaughter south of them.
All INNOCENT VICTIMS of a "Cold" War, huh?
Did you know the BLOOD is STILL HOT when a person gets BLOWN UP?
--more--"
The costs of wars span decades, don't they?
They never tell you that as they are lying you, 'er, leading into them, do they?
