Posted on 04/15/2008 5:08:43 AM PDT by cbkaty
MEXICO CITY — The U.S. State Department reissued a travel advisory for Mexico on Monday, warning Americans of increased drug-related violence and kidnappings, particularly in the embattled border region.
"Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," the alert reads.
It says Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua and Tijuana are particularly dangerous.
U.S. officials justified the need to update the previous alert, issued in October 2007, to include details on the ratcheting up of the drug war over the past year. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of troops to combat the narcotics cartels, which, after a brief retreat, are fighting back.
The alert "reflects the current reality in Mexico, including the increased violence on the U.S.-Mexico border," U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in printed comments.
More than 2,500 Mexicans were killed in gangland-style violence last year, and the death toll could exceed that this year, according to news reports. Police and soldiers increasingly count among the victims.
In addition, the alert said, "armed robberies and carjackings, apparently unconnected to the narcotics-related violence, have increased in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez."
The alert stopped short of warning Americans not to visit Mexico, which receives more than 12 million American visitors a year. The Mexican government did not have an official comment on the alert, which was issued late in the day.
marionlloyd@gmail.com
Just like Columbia in the says of Pablo and the other cartels.
I just got back from Mexico on Sunday. Lots of gun toting police running around looks like a war zone. I think there ox is getting gored as I type.
When the feds sealed off the Florida-Miami route of Colombia drug-traffic, the Colombia cartels started anorthern route through Mexico, infecting central America with the drugs and all the violence related to drug traffic. A wek Vincente Fox turned a blind-eye, concentrating on anti-Americanism insted of facing this problem head-on.
If Mexico gets any worse, the next President will have to deploy some sort of military presence at the border or it will have a very spill over effect into our Country.
Latin America is a basket case.
I read the book “Hunting Pablo”, which was about the search for Pablo Escobar. The author outlined how Columbia went from a 3rd world nation with a little drug problem to a 3rd world nation with a MAJOR drug problem. The bombings and shootings of police, politicians, innocents, witnesses, editors and journalists as the drug lords took power from the gov’t. And it reads just like Mexico today. Well worth reading. He will have to deploy the military more, and expect generals to be killed, or to drag their feet, and asdsassination plots against their President to come to light...
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