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A Mexican governor promised Wednesday to deploy his own police to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he’ll cancel some of the enhanced commercial traffic inspections that had clogged the ports of entry into the state. Nuevo Leon Gov. Samuel Alejandro Garcia Sepulveda said that means checkpoints on his side of the border, and his police patrolling the Rio Grande, to turn back illegal activity. “Our 14-kilometer border with Texas be continuously patrolled by our police,” he said in a meeting with Mr. Abbott. Mr. Abbott said Texas officials have verified that the new checks are...

A Jihadi-cartel alliance in the Mexican state of Nuevo León is collaborating to carry out attacks in American cities and ports of entry along the southern border, according to intelligence obtained by Judicial Watch from confidential U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources. As part of the plan, militant Islamists have arrived recently at the Monterrey International Airport situated in Apodaca, Nuevo León, about 130 miles south of the Texas border. An internal Mexican law enforcement report obtained by Judicial Watch confirms that Islamic terrorists have “people along the border, principally in Tijuana, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.” Cartel informants...

Another election, another surprise. Actually, two elections, in two countries last weekend, with surprisingly pleasant surprises. And in two very large countries: Turkey (population 82 million) and Mexico (119 million), both very important to the United States. In the runup to the Turkish election, speculation in English-speaking publications centered on whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party would get a large enough majority in the parliament to amend the constitution without a popular referendum. The AKP, usually described as mildly Islamist, has been in power since 2002. In some respects it has compiled a record that compares favorably with those...

A maverick former mayor known as El Bronco is mounting a serious bid to become Mexico's first independent candidate to win a governorship, buoyed by voter mistrust of the country's traditional political parties. Waging a social media campaign on a shoestring -- paid for largely with the crumpled bills supporters press into his hands on the stump -- Jaime Rodríguez is shaking up politics in Nuevo León, the conservative northern border state that includes the industrial powerhouse of Monterrey, and jolting politicians nationwide. An opinion poll published Friday in El Norte, Monterrey's leading newspaper, puts Mr. Rodríguez ahead of his...

A couple from Texas who moved to a violence-plagued area of northern Mexico to run a Baptist church were found murdered on Tuesday in their ransacked home, relatives said. John and Wanda Casias, originally from Amarillo, Texas, moved to an area outside of Monterrey, Mexico, in the late 1970s or early 1980s to make it their home. Valerie Alirez, the eldest child of John Casias, said one of her brothers found her father and stepmother dead on Tuesday in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon. John Casias, 76, was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent...

MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. Embassy in Mexico says two Americans have been slain outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey, an area plagued by drug violence. It identifies them as John and Wanda Casias. The embassy says the former Amarillo, Texas, couple's family has been notified and it is providing relatives consular services. The embassy hasn't confirmed reports that the killing happened Tuesday. Its statement provides no other details. Valerie Alirez in Greeley, Colo., is John Casias' eldest child. She says he and his wife were found dead Tuesday in Santiago, Nuevo Leon, by one of her brothers.

Monterrey – The suspected leader of the Los Zetas drug cartel in Guadalupe, a city in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, was captured along with six associates by army troops, the Defense Secretariat said. Rogelio Chacha Quintero, who used young women to recruit new members of his organization, was arrested on Monday, the secretariat said. The 27-year-old suspect was captured in the Orizaba neighborhood of Guadalupe, a city in the Monterrey metropolitan area, a military spokesman told Efe. Troops from the 7th Military Zone seized 23 vehicles, including several luxury automobiles, four rifles, drugs, hundreds of rounds of...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico will send more troops and federal police to try to control drug violence that has spiraled into warfare in parts of the northeast along the U.S. border, the government said Wednesday. The goal of "Coordinated Operation Northeast" is to reinforce government authority in the two states most heavily affected by a surge in violence following a split between the Gulf and Zetas drug gangs, federal police spokesman Alejandro Poire said. The new effort also aims to keep the two cartels from regrouping after the takedown of key leaders, he said. But in a media briefing with...

NUEVO LEON - An 8-year-old boy has gone missing after a shootout in Nuevo Leon. Investigators are searching for Brandon Cantu Emith Morales. Authorities say the boy was traveling with neighbors from South Padre Island. They came across a cartel checkpoint in Mexico. After not stopping, gunmen opened fire. One woman was shot in the head. The boy was also injured. Investigators say the driver bailed out of the vehicle and hid in a nearby house. When he returned, the boy and the woman were gone. The U.S. Consulate General's Office in Monterrery issued a statement to CHANNEL 5 NEWS:...

SNIPPET: "VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico -- Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers."

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "MEXICO CITY – The deputy police chief in the northern Mexican border city of Nogales was killed along with his bodyguard, Sonora state police said Friday. Adalberto Padilla and bodyguard Ivan Sepulveda were shot Thursday night while traveling in a police vehicle. The assailants were described as men inside an SUV who opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles, the weapon of choice for Mexico’s drug cartels. A 16-year-old bystander was wounded during the attack in the city just across the border from Nogales, Arizona." SNIPPET: "In other drug-related violence, a local police chief and his brother...

Official Mexican government reports reveal Mexico has entered discussions with the state of Texas and top officials in the Bush administration to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor into Mexico, with a plan to connect through Monterrey to the deep-water Mexican ports on the Pacific, including Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas. The official website of the Mexican northeastern state of Nuevo León contain multiple reports that José Natividad Gonzáles Parás, governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, has actively discussed with numerous U.S. government officials, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the...

Summary About 150 state police officers in Mexico's northern Nuevo Leon state went on strike May 21, demanding higher salaries and more resources to fight organized crime, which has claimed the lives of six state police officers in the past four days. Given that drug cartels have increasingly targeted police, army and government personnel in response to a federal campaign to combat organized crime -- and are showing no signs of stopping -- the security situation in Mexico likely will continue deteriorating.

MONTERREY, Mexico — In what might be the country's single biggest slap against organized crime in years, 112 police officers were arrested Monday in the border state of Nuevo León. The arrested law enforcers include beat cops from a dozen municipal districts and state police detectives and officers, according to a brief statement released by the state's press office. The sweep was the first phase of an ongoing state government effort to purge criminals from police agencies, Luís Carlos Treviño, the state attorney general, later told reporters. Treviño answered, "Probably," when asked if the arrested officers were linked to organized...

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government will expand its anti-drug raids to two states across the border from Texas, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers, sailors and federal police, officials said Sunday. The raids will cover Nuevo Laredo, a town across the border from Laredo, Texas, that has been bloodied by turf wars between drug gangs in recent years. Officials also said that in the two months since intensive raids began in central and western Mexico, they have destroyed almost as many opium fields as plots of marijuana, long Mexico's principal drug crop. "We have begun a frontal struggle against organized...

Another police officer fell in Nuevo León today. Enrique Barrera Nevárez, public security director in the city of Linares, was shot with high-powered assault rifles while leaving his home this morning, http://www.elnorte.com is reporting. As would appear to be the norm with this type of shooting, the killers escaped. According to the newspaper, the police chief had been threatened and a previous attempt on his life failed earlier this year. Linares is southeast of Monterrey on the highway to Ciudad Victoria. The killing is the 38th in the state, a record, and the 6th of a law enforcer so far...

Latin America: You'd think Mexico's election was lost by a leftist instead of won by a free marketer. But Felipe Calderon's victory reflects growing confidence in free trade in overlooked flyover states. Not that the media have noticed. Virtually all of them covered the election from Mexico City expecting a leftist victory, so it's little surprise that they ignore the winner and focus now on soap opera and sour grapes rallies led by Calderon's opponent, Mexico City-based Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. During the campaign, U.S. media gushed over Lopez Obrador as the "Mestizo Bill Clinton." Now he's preparing to become...

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) -- Two police chiefs were shot and killed within hours of each other in a violence-plagued region near the United States where drug smugglers have been battling for control of key routes across the border. It wasn't immediately clear if the killings Monday were related, but authorities say violence has spiked in Mexico's northeast since the 2003 arrest of the area's top reputed drug dealer set off the turf war. Hector Ayala, chief of police in the wealthy town of San Pedro Garza Garcia outside Monterrey, was killed Monday when a car overtook his vehicle and opened...

TORREON, Mexico — On his first visit to this nation since taking office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger received a warm reception Thursday from fellow governors at a border conference... SNIP "It's a good sign that the governor came," said Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras, governor of Nuevo Leon state, after the event. "It demonstrates that he wants to construct with the governors of the border and the Mexican people a strong relationship." SNIP "He's afraid. He knows the people of Mexico don't like him," said Sandra Mejia Soto, a Mexican representative for the Southwest Network, a group of environmental and immigrant rights...