Posted on 03/31/2011 8:27:08 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
BROWNSVILLE — A new law enforcement bulletin warns that members of drug cartels have been overheard plotting to kill federal agents and Texas Rangers who guard the border, officials in Washington reported Thursday.
The bulletin, which was issued in March, said cartel members planned to use AK-47 assault rifles to shoot agents and Rangers from across the border. It did not name the cartels.
The information was released at a hearing before a panel of the House Committee on Homeland Security. The Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management addressed “The U.S. Homeland Security Role in the Mexican War Against the Drug Cartels.”
U.S. Rep. Michael T. McCaul, R-Texas, talked briefly about the bulletin at the hearing. He said this and other findings he cited “are acts of terrorism as defined by law. The shooting of Special Agent Zapata and Avila is a game changer, which alters the landscape of United State’s involvement in Mexico’s war against drug cartels.”
He was referring to Jaime Jorge Zapata, 32, a Brownsville native and special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who was killed on Feb. 15 while on duty in Mexico. Injured in the same attack was Special Agent Victor Avila. Members of the Zetas criminal organization are suspected in the attack.
Tom Vinger, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Thursday in a statement: “DPS constantly keeps our officers and our law enforcement partners informed of any intelligence that suggests possible threats to their safety. However, we cannot comment on specific law enforcement bulletins.”
In a response to the threats, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said, “Out of an abundance of caution, we routinely share information that could impact our frontline personnel in order to ensure that they are aware of any and all threats.”
The news comes at time when ICE reportedly is having a difficult time recruiting agents willing to work in Mexico, said Luis Alvarez, assistant director for ICE International Affairs, who testified at the hearing.
Although cooperation with the Mexican government has been “excellent,” Alvarez said, “it is getting more and more difficult (to recruit) because of the increase in violence.”
“It is a difficult work environment. They are constantly looking out for their safety, their surroundings. ... They are concerned about their families from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep,” Alvarez said.
At the hearing, a picture of the vehicle in which Zapata and Avila were riding was displayed. McCaul described it as a “highly secure vehicle.” More than 80 rounds from AK-47 rifles were fired at the SUV.
“This demonstrates how violent the situation has become down there. … It looks like something out of a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ movie. This is real, and that is what is happening in Mexico,” McCaul said.
In response to the attack, ICE has brought back its agents from Mexico for additional training, Alvarez said.
“We have provided them with some defensive driving tactics so they can carry out their mission and be prepared for whatever they are going to withstand down in Mexico,” he said.
McCaul said Zapata and Avila pleaded for their lives in Spanish and identified themselves as U.S. federal agents. The attackers responded by firing a barrage of bullets.
“I know agent Avila said that (there were) 10 guys with AK-47s,” McCaul said. “What can you do in that situation? Totally out-gunned and out-manned.”
The U.S. government has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those responsible for the attack on Zapata and Avila. The Mexican government has offered a reward of up to 10 million pesos — equal to roughly $837,000.
They forgot to include the part about cartel members planned to use AK-47 assault rifles....
Supplied by the BATF...
Those cartel-fools are gonna mess around and really P.O. the Texas Rangers. Once they do and since the FedGov is too scared to do anything, they will send a Ranger to settle it all. One riot, one Ranger so one cartel, one Ranger. Don’t mess with Texas - or the Texas Rangers and I’m not talking about the baseball team.
I realize this is serious and not funny.
However ... opening day is tomorrow for the Texas Rangers baseball team and that’s what’s on my mind right now. So when I read the title, my first thought was “Big deal. Every team will be gunning for them because they went to the World Series last season.” Then I paused and thought, “Wait a minute ... Cartels?! I didn’t hear anything about a new team this year.”
(*Two second pause*) “Doh!”
Go Rangers!
Sure they did. It’s “censorship by omission”.
“I’m old enough to remember the days when the U.S. knew how to respond to threats like this. We live in an age of lesser men.”
Me too. Did you ever think you would live to see the day that the President of the USA would not have the stones to send some Marines and maybe a few Army Rangers down to the border area and seal it up like a ziplock bag then search and destroy anything even resembling a drug cartel member on our side of the border. My dad always called it cleaning out a rats nest.
Sure. Hard to believe, but it was only 97 short years ago that our great Nation had the ‘nads to look after its national interests. That was before the entire nation became pussy whipped by feminazis, leftist peaceniks, PC groupthink, and the multiculti nonsense that no culture is better than another.
Declare war, invade and conquer with extreme prejudice, take over their oil and other resouces, annex the territory, crush any resistance or corruption with an iron fist.
When the resources run out, use their people to construct an impenetrable wall along the border, and bring our troops home. Further crap from them will be met with nuclear responses when the prevailing winds are favorable.
Better to be feared than liked.
(WWTD - What Would Trump Do?)
We need to go high order on these people right now, but the leadership within CBP and HSI aren’t going to get the job done. They care more about politics and less about officer/agent and civilian safety. It is going to take a Juarez style massacre of civilians on the U.S. side to get any inertia change with this administration.
I was thinking the same thing. I mean, kill the Rangers and the Mariners would still be in third place in the AL West. Dang it.
Bwahahahaha! Go Rangers! :)
Well said.
Sounds like it’s time for a NASA/mexican outreach program. /angrier by the minute
Time to bring the Confederate Air Force back to the Valley.
Can’t say that I disagree with anything you said. It will either take a Juarez thing or a dirty bomb or suitcase nuke going off in a big city before the clowns in D.C. make up their mind to do something about the border. This is no longer the country I grew up in...
At least you have your priorities straight. Go White Sox!
Not even a hundred years ago. Pancho Villa came into the U.S. and something was done about it. Cartels run the border now and you can’t anyone anyone inside the Beltway to even raise their head from the trough.
I don’t think even that will change things. Not until someone wearing the purple is a victim of these thugs.
Sadly, you could be right. Too many of us commoners anyway so who cares as long as our ‘betters’ aren’t harmed?
They'd treat it as a law enforcement matter just like Clinton treated terrorism.
I've said for years, we should've invaded Mexico instead of Iraq. It's interesting that we don't have a "responsibility to protect" when thousands are murdered in border towns but threat of "humanitarian crisis" thousands of miles away calls for missile launches, bombings and air strikes.
The death toll last year was 15,237, almost half of the 34,600 since Calderón took office four years ago. It's getting worse, not better. At the link, it claims we're spending $1.4 billion on the "Merida Initiative" in drug war aid to Mexico.
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