Better to let them kill each other as much as they can, and then hunt down the survivors, when the Military can control the conditions of the engagement.
UPDATE: That is just what happened after this shootout as well. The Military literally tracked down the group of gunmen who invaded the local territory (Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas) in the days after, by identifying the tire tracks of the specially armored vehicles they drive. They tracked them to their rural hideout, came with overwhelming force, and flushed them out of the house when they were unprepared, killing five while losing none of their own, and capturing a bunch of their gear and intelligence materials.
The cartels are better armed than the Mexican Military, from what I’ve read, the cartels are fairly sophisticated using encrypted radios, .50 cal machine guns, anti-aircraft capable of shooting down helicopters, armored vehicles, etc...
It makes you wonder if the cartels ever got together and operated collectively what damage could they do..
Back in the 1920s and 1930s in the USA, the Italian Mafia was constantly fighting each other, Lucky Luciano somehow got them all together and formed the commission and 5 families to settle disputes...the italian mafia combined with prohibition took off...
If the Cartels ever did something similar it would be unbelievable what damage they could do..
The Military literally tracked down the group of gunmen who invaded the local territory (Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas)
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Looks like that segment of the Mexican Mil works for Los Zetas
They're gonna run out of customers one way or another.
We need a Predator II situation at the border. Wish we could get a message out... “Fully stocked game preserve. Quarry heavily armed. No bag limit. Will provide cattle and lodging”.
To Police:
Lo siento. Pensamos que era Chicago.
Sorry. We thought it was Chicago.
When we had 2 prisoners fighting in the prison I worked at we didn’t just jump right in. As long as there were no weapons involved we waited for backup to show. This allowed the guys to tire themselves out a bit before we intervened. I see this as something similar: let them fight so they’ll be tired when the army does jump in.
CC