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Warning set to expire Tuesday renewed because of security concerns MATAMOROS — American officials on Friday defended their border-wide security alert amid criticism from politicians and business leaders who say it has hurt tourism and other cross-border commerce. The alert, originally issued in January, was set to expire Tuesday but was renewed based on continued security concerns. "We’ve been told that it’s not fair and it’s not right," said U.S. Consul John Naland of the renewed alert at a Friday morning press conference. "But just yesterday (Thursday) in Reynosa there was a confrontation between federal troops and drug dealers." Although...

McALLEN — The State Department reissued a travel alert for the Mexico border region Tuesday, citing a "continuing unsettled public security situation" there. It singled out Nuevo Laredo as a place where more than 30 Americans have been kidnapped or murdered in the past eight months, a statistic that critics of the document said was misleading. Similar to one issued in late January, the announcement blamed ongoing violence on Mexico's feuding drug cartels and weak police and judicial systems, although it credited the imprisonment of drug gang leaders with creating a power vacuum that started the violence in the first...

Border alert for suspected al-Qaida member 09:54 AM MST on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 azfamily.com TUCSON -- An alert has been issued along the Mexico border for a suspected al-Qaida member who may be trying to cross the border through Arizona or Texas. FBI Adnan G. El Shukrijumah is pictured in all three photographs. According to authorities, 29-year-old Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, who also goes by the names Adnan G. El Shukri Jumah, Abu Arif, Ja'far Al-Tayar, Jaffar Al-Tayyar, Jafar Tayar and Jaafar Al-Tayyar, is suspected of being an al-Qaida cell leader and has been wanted in the United States...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Officials on the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday stepped up efforts to contain a dengue outbreak in the Mexican city of Matamoros after health authorities confirmed 24 cases and suspected another 222.Matamoros Public Health Director Ernesto Chanes said six of the suspected cases of dengue in the 450,000-strong city were the potentially lethal hemorrhagic dengue strain. Although, he said to date no deaths had been reported.Matamoros city workers are spraying neighborhoods where dengue cases have been confirmed and soldiers are patrolling streets looking for stagnant pools of water to contain the outbreak and stop it spreading to...