Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Improvised explosive devices, like those that have killed and maimed thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, pose a growing threat across Texas and the United States, leading to calls for urgent cooperation between U.S. military experts and civilian law enforcement officers. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, director of the Pentagon's so-called Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, alerted Congress in classified testimony this month to the mounting IED threat at home. He also highlighted the challenges his team faces trying to train stateside law enforcement agencies to detect, disarm and defeat the devices. “The domestic IED...

The free press has all but disappeared. The news is often little more than a means of controlling the message. Entire areas of the country have experienced an information blackout. Many frightened citizens rely on bloggers, face book, twitter and text messages as their only source of news and information. Open warfare rages below the Rio Grande. The Houston Chronicle reports that. "After years of relative calm, the gangland nightmare is back-and yet, barely a single mention of the clashes here has been made by local radio and television or newspapers. The city's journalists, having lost some of their own...

Violence spilling on to U.S. soil from the border of Mexico was a major reason for tougher immigration laws in Arizona. Now - with seven stray bullets striking the El Paso City Hall from the Mexican town of Juarez, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has written a letter to President Barack Obama demanding "action." LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - There were no injuries in the shootings, and was the likely result of Mexico's warring drug cartels. Abbott's letter, reprinted in the El Paso Times, read in part: "The time for talk has passed. The time for action is now....

ExaminerApril 12, 2010Jim KouriA bombing incident at a U.S. consulate in Mexico received very little news media attention and absolutely no response from President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Attorney General Eric Holder. An explosion occurred at the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo in Mexico on Saturday morning. A small bomb was thrown over the wall of the consulate but there were no casualties reported by U.S. or Mexican authorities. The attack in the Mexican border city was the latest alleged attack by Mexican drug gangs who are targeting the U.S. due to American law enforcement assisting...

AUSTIN - The Mexican military seized improvised explosive devices just miles from the Valley. The IEDs (or roadside bombs) are the same weapons terrorists use in the Middle East. The homemade explosives can be sophisticated or crude. They're often deadly. They've killed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. CHANNEL 5 NEWS learned the weapons are also in the hands of the drug cartels in Mexico. On March 30, more than 50 cartel members attacked the Mexican military in Matamoros and Reynosa. Eighteen people died. Soldiers seized 50 rifles, 60 hand grenades, and eight IEDs. "The seizure of the IEDs is definitely...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - A cross-border drug gang born in the prison cells of Texas has evolved into a sophisticated paramilitary killing machine that U.S. and Mexican officials suspect is responsible for thousands of assassinations here, including the recent ambush and slaying of three people linked to the U.S. Consulate. The heavily tattooed Barrio Azteca gang members have long operated across the border in El Paso, dealing drugs and stealing cars. But in Ciudad Juarez, the organization now specializes in contract killing for the Juarez drug cartel. According to U.S. law enforcement officers, it may have been involved in as...

Authorities were searching today for dozens of people who fled a suspect stash house for illegal immigrants in north Houston after a shooting, police said. About 50 people are thought to have bolted overnight from the home near the intersection of Vashti and Karen after shots were fired, police said. About 10 people were apprehended

A longtime rancher was killed on his Douglas-area property over the weekend, and neighbors worried that his homicide was connected to increasing border-related crime in the area. The Cochise County Sheriff's Office offered little information into the late-Saturday shooting death of 58-year-old Robert Krentz, whose family began the Krentz Ranch more than 100 years ago. Krentz's body was found on his land, which is about 35 miles northeast of Douglas, just before midnight Saturday, said Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Office. The Sheriff's Office, aided by the U.S. Border Patrol, had no suspects Sunday and continued to follow...