Posted on 04/11/2010 9:50:17 AM PDT by AuntB
'Assassinations of law enforcement and political leaders in the the US is very likely'
When US/Mexican border region law enforcement were warned in late March by the El Paso Sector Border Intelligence Center that “the Barrio Azteca gang in El Paso” may be plotting to kill El Paso law enforcement officers in retaliation for a recent crackdown on gang members, the threat did not come as a surprise to officials monitoring Mexican cartel movements to begin killing any US law enforcement who get in their way.
More than 200 officers from 20 separate law enforcement agencies targeted Barrio Azteca in a series of raids in which officials were looking for information about gang-tied murders in Juárez and El Paso. Three Americans connected to the US Consulate in Juarez were gunned down in what appeared to be a cartel-related hit.
Some US counter-cartel officials told HSToday.us they believe if the killings were the result of an ordered hit, it could have been meant as a warning, “or signal,” that the cartels (Bario Azteca members serve as “street soldiers” moving cartel drugs north of the border) will begin killing US officials in retaliation for the US’s increasingly successful efforts in preventing larger quantities of narcotics from being smuggled across the border.
See the January 2009 Homeland Security Today report, “Savage Struggle on the Border.”
More than a year-and-half ago, Homeland Security Today reported that increased pressure on Mexico’s narco-cartels and trafficking organizations would inevitably result in the cartels openly threatening, and in some cases directly targeting for assassination, US federal, state and local border and law enforcement officials.
“Assassinations of law enforcement and political leaders in the US [at some point in the near future also are] very likely,” Maria Velez De Berliner, an expert on Latin American narco-traffickers and gangs told HSToday.us.
In Mexico, cartel assassinations of top law enforcement and political leaders isn't uncommon, with the cartels openly vowing to kill both civilian and military officials and members who get in their way.
It has been feared for some time that narco-cartel warring with Mexican law enforcement and military would eventually “spill over” into the United States.
Border violence and increasing indications of “spillover” violence inside the US, according to classified intelligence revealed to HSToday.us, has become so severe that border state governors and top law enforcement officials are urging the Obama administration to significantly beef-up security along the border, including sending the National Guard to supplement Border Patrol.
Indeed, four years ago, David Aguilar, deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection warned the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Investigations that “as we continue to bring larger areas of the border under operational control, we can expect spikes in border violence as border criminals discover they can no longer operate with impunity and are prevented from using the border for their criminal activities.”
Intelligence that began to be collected more than a year ago indicated the cartels had ordered “hits” on specific border region law enforcement authorities and that smugglers the cartels rely on and the “street enforcers” that provide security for cross border trafficking operations had been ordered to secure the delivery of narco-shipments at any cost, even if it meant gunning down law enforcement officials who get in their way. And that is precisely what is happening.
US counter-narcotics and counterterrorism officials and law enforcement told HSToday.us in late February 2009 that intelligence – some gleaned in cooperation with Mexico’s intelligence services – indicated that Mexico’s two dominant cartels had ordered its operatives in the US to directly engage US law enforcement officers who get in their way.
HSToday.us reported that January that US law enforcement officials feared that this might be the cartels’ next move. The cartels are battling it out for control over the dwindling narco/human-trafficking “plazas” into the US.
Intelligence officials told HSToday.us the cartels for more than a year have offered profitable incentives to its US operatives to engage US law enforcement. The cartels also are kidnapping members of operatives’ families in an attempt to force these operatives in the US to take more forceful responses to law enforcement crackdowns on cartel operations. Others are simply being threatened with torture and execution if they do not carry out the cartels’ orders.
“These are powerful incentives to these criminals who see no way out,” one federal law enforcement cartel authority told HSToday.us. “In other words, if cornered, they may indeed feel they have no option other than to just shoot it out! And if there’s a bunch of them with heavy firepower, there could be casualties among our law enforcement as well as the public who could be caught in the crossfire. It’s a recipe for a lot of bloodshed, no two ways about it!”
At a classified meeting in Arizona more than a year ago senior US counter-narcotics officials were warned that "trafficking organizations have begun to feel the 'squeeze' and pressure against their illegal activities,” and thus “these criminal groups increasingly resort to violent means to conduct smuggling operations.”
“And that is exactly what’s happening,” said a federal official involved in counter-narco intelligence who asked not to be identified.
The FBI also had warned law enforcement officers along the southwest border that Mexico’s cartels had ordered their operatives to begin killing police who get in the way of their operations.
An FBI San Antonio Field Office intelligence advisory strongly warned that the Sinaloa Cartel had ordered enforcers to engage US law enforcement officers to protect cartel operations.
The National Drug Intelligence Center stated in its 2010 drug threat assessment report that assaults against Border Patrol agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in fiscal 2007 to 1,097 incidents in fiscal 2008 -- including the January 2008 killing of an agent by the automobile of a fleeing drug suspect and the fatal shooting of another agent in July 2009.
According to statistics provided to HSToday.us, assaults on Border Patrol Agents has steadily increased in recent years, and in some areas has become increasingly violent.
The earlier FBI warning said cartel enforcers are bolstering their ranks with members of US-based Hispanic gangs that the cartel uses to distribute narcotics on US streets.
Alarmingly, an FBI advisory warned that cartel operatives in the United States “are believed to be armed with assault rifles, bullet proof vests and grenades, and are occupying safe houses,” noting that Jaime González Duran, an overseer of the Zetas, the Sinaloa Cartel’s armed enforcers, instructed his cells to "engage law enforcement with a full tactical response should law enforcement attempt to intervene in their operations."
Weeks later, on November 7, 2008, Duran, a deserter from the Mexican Army, was arrested by the Mexican military in Reynosa, just across the border from McAllen, Texas. Duran had been a bodyguard for Zeta boss, Osiel "The Friend Killer” Cardenas, who was arrested in 2003 after an intense shootout in Matamoros before TV cameras.
Cardenas' arrest had been a top priority of the FBI and DEA. In 1999, Cardenas and Zeta enforcers surrounded a vehicle on a public street in Matamoros in which FBI and DEA agents were transporting a Gulf Cartel informant. Cardenas demanded the informant’s release, but when the FBI and DEA refused and a gunfight seemed imminent, Cardenas backed down.
Duran was captured in a safehouse that held a staggering supply of weaponry. Mexican Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said the sheer number of the weapons haul was the biggest “seizure … in the history of Mexico involving organized crime.” Indeed. Hundreds of assault rifles, .50 caliber sniper rifles, handguns, grenades, dynamite and 500,000 of rounds of ammunition were seized.
Four years ago, though, the US had known of the cartels’ buildup of firepower. In January 2006, federal and state law enforcement officers seized an enormous cache of weapons in Laredo, Texas. Authorities found two completed improvised explosive devices, materials for making 33 more, military grenades, 26 grenade triggers, a large stockpile of AK-47s and AR-15 assault rifles and 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bulletproof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, and of course drugs and cash.
Intelligence sources had told HSToday.us prior to the Duran bust that the quantity of military-grade weaponry the cartels have stashed “is enormous – the new FBI advisory doesn’t even begin to outline the seriousness of what they’ve got,” said one intelligence source.
Both the National Drug Intelligence Center and National Gang Intelligence Center have pointed out that these gang members are integral to the cartels’ operations here. And the cartels have aggressively been reinforcing their American operations with members from their ranks.
A confidential Drug Enforcement Administration report stated that Mexico’s narco-cartels are far more sophisticated and dangerous than any of the other organized criminal groups in America’s law enforcement history.
Intelligence indicated that the cartels had began to amass high-powered military munitions at strongholds along the border, as well as acquiring potent weaponry inside the US – all with the intent to provide these munitions to street soldiers in the US charged with enforcing the cartels' stateside operations. Many of these ruthless enforcers are hardened, violent Latin American-tied gang members, not an insignificant number of whom are ex-members of the Mexican and US military, or elite Mexican and US special forces
Mexican Embassy hit yesterday...
Rancher murdered in Arizona....
US Citizens from our embassy murdered in Mexico...
All within the past few days......does anyone think these narco terrorists aren't living up to their threats?
They have also found them with IED’s and grenades and stuff.
It is coming to America. No doubt.
/
Mexico and the Forever Drug War
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/08/opinion/main6377441_page3.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
One line is most interesting: “This was too much even for Ciudad Juárez, where the murder rate has been reported at 165 deaths per 100,000 residents — nearly four times higher than in Baghdad”
ALmost as bad as Chicago
All drug users and drug peddlers are guilty of supporting this criminal enterprise, and therefore have blood on their hands!IMHO
“All drug users and drug peddlers are guilty of supporting this criminal enterprise, and therefore have blood on their hands!IMHO”
If we followed the law and kept the biggest pushers out, we’d have MUCH less usage. Look, people have always used drugs, they always will. Cut the suppliers off and you’ll cut off usuage.
I agree with the strategy, but this does not remove the moral responsibilities I mention.
Agreed.
Sadly, every time the pols come up with a new and improved Immigration Reform (amnesty) package, they solve the problem of illegal immigration by making them legal, but never seem to have a plan for dealing with those who they don’t make legal, such as these narco folks who will still come and go with impunity.
If we had a responsible federal government, we'd have thousands of National Guard troops all along that border 24/7/365 (366 for Leap Year), and every damned vehicle that crossed the border northward would be checked over by drug sniffing dogs and a very generously staffed Border Patrol.
And the blame doesn't all fall on Obama by any stretch. Presidents and our Congress have been allowing this to build up at least since GHWB and his deliberate, gross negligence at border enforcement after the amnesty of 1986.
The border may get some attention when politicians are being murdered.
and Obama lets Napolitanon lead the fight to secure our borders and embassies..
What fight you ask?
exactly
MUST SEE!! The ‘Flush the John’ Song has gone viral and is on YOU TUBE! McCain’s gotta go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJobkdeho88
They did a great job!!!
“The border may get some attention when politicians are being murdered.”
NO comment! :<)
Nope, no way, it won’t be coming to America because KBH promised it wouldn’t and stopped the fence.
Move along, nothing to see:
http://www.valleymorningstar.com/articles/brownsville-59105-mexico-shakes.html
Sure will - they will try to legalize the drug & tax them for it.
you aren't seriously suggesting that the body politic in America has the spine to do otherwise are you?
We can put KBH on the border with one of those big flashlights.
Just follow the money!
“the Barrio Azteca gang in El Paso” may be plotting to kill El Paso law enforcement officers in retaliation for a recent crackdown on gang members.
This would be a mistake for them.
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