An anonymous, twentysomething blogger is giving Mexicans what they can’t get elsewhere — an inside view of their country’s raging drug war.
Diesel Civil Trust
The bloodbath continues along our southern border and now word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area. I am receiving word that the owners of the ranches have evacuated without being harmed.
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.
Killings Fuel Concern Over Mexico’s Drug Offensive
The killing of an American consulate worker and her husband over the weekend in the shadow of the bridge that links this ramshackle city with the United States has become a public symbol of the mounting concern here that President Felipe Calderon’s strategy for attacking Mexico’s drug cartels is veering far off course.
The city braced for a visit on Tuesday from Mr. Calderón, who has been forced by the relentless violence here to recalibrate his approach and acknowledge that merely concentrating firepower on the drug gangs is not working.
In an about-face, the Mexican government has begun refocusing much of its energy on attacking social issues in Ciudad Juárez, in what officials say privately could be an experiment for other Mexican cities that are consumed by drug violence.
American officials say they have encouraged and supported the new approach, pointing to the lack of opportunity here.
United States officials reiterated on Monday their support for Mr. Calderón’s battle against Mexico’s drug gangs, which first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration have backed with more than $1 billion in aid. The money has been spread across an array of agencies charged with fighting the drug war. It has bought helicopters for the army, X-ray equipment for customs, training for judges and a new police academy for federal police recruits.
Read Full Story, Here.
- via nytimes.com
Three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were killed in two drive-by shootings, a senior White House official told CNN Sunday.
Two of the victims were an American employee at the consulate and her U.S. citizen husband. The husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate was also killed. The shootings happened Saturday afternoon, the official said.
The American couple, identified by Mexican authorities only as a woman about 25 years old and a man around 30, were found dead inside a white Toyota RAV4 with Texas license plates, according to the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office.
The woman was shot in the neck and left arm, while the man had a bullet wound near his right eye, officials said.
“We know that the U.S. citizens were targeted,” Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz told CNN, saying a police officer witnessed a car shooting at the Americans’ car. “We know they were chasing them. We know they wanted to kill them.”
Read More, Here.
- via cnn.com
REYNOSA, Mexico - This border city and others near the eastern end of the U.S. border escaped the worst of Mexico’s bloody drug war for years, but now the bodies are piling up, several journalists are reportedly missing or dead and once-busy streets are empty after dark.
In a new incident of grisly drug war violence, a man’s face was skinned and stitched onto a soccer ball as a threat to members of Mexico’s Juarez drug cartel.
Seriously, does depravity know no boundaries? I don’t consider myself a naive person, but even I am shocked by this level of violence. It makes me question humanity’s chances for basic survival. Emphasis mine.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—A few weeks ago, Army Captain Ramón Velásquez got his introduction to Ciudad Juárez, ground zero in Mexico’s war against violent drug cartels.
A new regiment of soldiers arrives in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. Mexican President Felipe Calderon mobilized 45,000 soldiers in his efforts to quell the violence created by drug traffickers.
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s war on drugs took a grim twist this week, as a prominent mayor said he had created an undercover group of operatives to “clean up” criminal elements — even if it had to act outside the law. Underscoring why the mayor may have felt compelled to take such steps, the new police chief in a neighboring town, a retired brigadier general, was shot and killed Wednesday, four days after taking up his post.
Poppy cultivation fell by more than 20 per cent in Afghanistan in the past year, UN investigators will announce on Wednesday, handing a rare spot of good news to western governments seeking to justify rising troop casualties to voters.
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