Feral Jundi

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Mexico: Drug Cartels’ New Weaponry Means War

Filed under: Mexico,Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 10:58 PM

     Doug sent me this one, and this is very interesting on two levels.  The gun control folks in the US have been saying that all the weapons the cartels use, are coming from the US, and obviously they are not. The pistols and basic rifles maybe, but the war grade munitions like grenades and what not are coming from Central America.  

     The second point is the type of weaponry that they are getting out of Central America. Grenades, belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers, .50 caliber sniper rifles–all of it is war munitions, and requires a very specific approach to defend against and deal with. So if security companies start picking up contracts down there, the level of security should at least be on par to combat this type of stuff.  I am not talking mall cop security, I am talking Iraq style security.  Thats if PMC was ever used to battle PMC down there. –Matt

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Drug cartels’ new weaponry means war

Narcotics traffickers are acquiring firepower more appropriate to an army — including grenade launchers and antitank rockets — and the police are feeling outgunned.

By Ken Ellingwood and Tracy Wilkinson

March 15, 2009

Reporting from Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and Mexico City — It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city’s police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades.

The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.

(more…)

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Kidnap and Ransom: Rural Mexican Villages Dig Moats to Repel Raiding Gangsters

Filed under: Kidnap And Ransom,Mexico — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 10:50 PM

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.” 

    This is sickening to read.  When a town has to resort to these types of measures to defend themselves from this kind of crime, then you know things are really bad. The protection of this town would be an excellent project of a PMC, if given the contract.  Just saying.  –Matt

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Rural Mexican villages dig moats to repel gangsters

Ditches don’t always deter raids, but federal troops can’t be spared

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS

Houston Chronicle

March 22, 2009, 3:43PM

Julian Cardona For the Chronicle

Ruben Solis, a farmers’ leader, says these moats that villagers dug around Cuauhtémoc were “a means of preservation” for the town. The sentinels at the checkpoints to the village, however, have been removed. ?

CUAUHTEMOC, Mexico — Little town, big hell.

That proverb about turmoil in small communities has never seemed truer than in this gangster-besieged village and a neighboring one in the bean fields and desert scrub a long day’s drive south of the Rio Grande.

Since right before Christmas, armed raiders repeatedly have swept into both villages to carry away local men. Government help arrived too late, or not at all.

Terrified villagers — at the urging of army officers who couldn’t be there around the clock — have clawed moats across every access road but one into their communities, hoping to repel the raids.

“This was a means of preservation,” said Ruben Solis, 47, a farmers’ leader in Cuauhtemoc, a collection of adobe and concrete houses called home by 3,700 people. “It’s better to struggle this way than to face the consequences.”

But shortly after midnight last Sunday, villagers said, as many as 15 SUVs loaded with pistoleros attacked nearby San Angel, population 250, and kidnapped five people. Four victims were returned unharmed a few days later. The fifth hostage, a teenage boy, was held to exchange for the intended target the raiders missed, villagers said.

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.”

After the earthworks were dug in both villages, volunteers manned checkpoints at the remaining open entrances. Those sentinels, however, were removed when it was decided they couldn’t stop a serious attack, anyhow .

“We aren’t able to confront this sort of thing,” Solis said. “We have a few shotguns, some .22 rifles, a few pistols — nothing compared to what they have.”

(more…)

Monday, March 23, 2009

Mexico: Los Zetas, A PMC/Cartel That Truly Deserves Negative Media Attention

Filed under: Law Enforcement,Mexico — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 8:23 PM

   Thanks to Eeben for pointing these guys out to me.  You learn something new all the time, and these guys have been going off the hook since 2003. This is a group, founded by Mexican Special Forces, that executed it’s operations like the military complete with an intelligence apparatus, all for the sake of the drug trade.  That to me is evil, and that deserves an onslaught of negative media attention.  Yet the media continues to focus on groups like Xe, because it’s easy and safe. Pffft.  

    The really bad guys are just south of the US border, and have been murderous heathens when it comes to crimes against humanity, yet where is the media pressure?  I mean there is no comparison, when you put these guys up against Blackwater, but by all means keep demonizing BW.  How about it Jeremy Scahill, why not write about a truly evil PMC and put your efforts into a Los Zetas book……that’s if your man enough? smirk

    I also like the idea that Eeben came up with in that same post in the comments section.  PMC versus PMC!  I would love to see Executive Outcomes come out of retirement and take on these fools.  That would be money well spent in my humble opinion.  Although from the sounds of it, Los Zetas has kind of taken on an Al Qaeda type of emergence, where the original group is really not in control and the idea of the group lives on in spirit. Missed opportunities. Either way, the myth of the Los Zetas would be a good one to crumble if we could. –Matt

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Los Zetas: Evolution of a Criminal Organization

11 Mar 2009

By Samuel Logan for ISN Security Watch

From the original 31 members, the Mexican organized criminal faction Los Zetas has grown into an organization in its own right, operating separate from the Gulf Cartel and just as violent, Sam Logan writes for ISN Security Watch.

Between the first of the year and mid-March, 2009 the Mexican criminal organization most commonly known as “Los Zetas” has been busy. Members of this group have been linked to a death threat delivered to the president of Guatemala, a grenade thrown into a bar in Pharr, Texas, the death of a high-ranking military general in Cancun, and a fair share of the organized crime-related deaths registered this year in Mexico.

(more…)

Monday, March 9, 2009

Mexico: Texas Governor Screams For 1,000 Troops

Filed under: Mexico,Texas — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 2:22 PM

“Texas pleads for U.S. troops

Now, to hear Texas Gov. Rick Perry tell it, U.S. resources are being focused too much on Mexico and not enough on Americans on this side of the border.

Last month, Perry called on the Department of Homeland Security to send 1,000 troops to the U.S. side of the border. Complaining that the federal government had not done enough to protect Americans in the border region, Perry dismissed potential constitutional concerns about assigning active-duty U.S. personnel to military operations inside the United States, saying bluntly, ‘I really don’t care.’” 

And…

“I don’t care if they are military, National Guard or Customs agents,” Mr Perry said at a news conference at the border town of El Paso yesterday. “We’re very concerned that the federal Government is not funding border security adequately. We must be ready for any contingency.” 

    Thanks to Jeff for sending me this story.  I’m sorry, but when I hear the governor of a state screaming for troops, and we don’t answer the call, I have to say WTF? I mean the governor has the National Guard to draw from, but it sounds like Texas wants something more, in terms of money and commitment.   

    There is plenty of fire power to draw upon in the US, it’s just establishing the mechanism to get it done.  Law enforcement could deputize citizens and form a posse of volunteers.  The National Guard could send folks from some other state, if Texas can’t do it with their own NG.  The Border Patrol could up the recruitment tempo and infuse more folks into the program out there, and even draw upon ICE to throw more folks down there.  

    Or, the final solution is to contract it out.  Matter of fact, all of those groups I listed, could contract PSC’s to make this happen.  We did it during the Hurricane Katrina disasters, and private security companies like Blackwater, Steele Foundation, SOC or Armorgroup were able to respond very quickly and effectively. And to really emphasize this point of contractors on the border, we already use them for border duties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I guess they are not good enough for the US border?  And during the Katrina disaster, PSC’s were deputized by the state of Louisiana.  It was an emergency, and establishing security in that disaster zone was the priority, no matter how they got it done.  I see no difference with the call for help in Texas, and in other border states.  

   Of course the Border Patrol and Local Law Enforcement should be the primary guardians of the border and those border cities and towns. But if they are overwhelmed and out gunned, and they lack the manpower or there is some legal stop sign about using US troops, then contract out the security.   

   Either way, I go back to leadership for this one.  There are plenty of ways to answer this call for security on the border, but it takes leadership and a plan to make it happen.  Texas and the border states are screaming for help, and we need to take care of our people. –Matt 

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 In Mexico’s drug wars, fears of a U.S. front

Violence that has killed thousands is beginning to cross border, officials say

By Alex Johnson

March. 9, 2009

With U.S. forces fighting two wars abroad, the nation’s top military officer made an important visit last week to forestall a third.

He went to Mexico.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the trip to confer with Mexican leaders about the Merida Initiative, a three-year plan signed into law last June to flood the U.S.-Mexican border region with $1.4 billion in U.S. assistance for law-enforcement training and equipment, as well as technical advice and training to bolster Mexico’s judicial system.

The assistance is intended to help Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa step up his war against drug cartels. The drug lords and their soldiers are blamed for having killed more than 6,300 people since January 2008, including more than 1,000 in the first two months of this year alone.

That’s about 100 people every week for the last 14 months. The cartels usually do not target civilians, but dozens, perhaps hundreds, have died in the crossfire.

(more…)

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Mexico: A Mexican Army Surge for Juarez

Filed under: Mexico — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 11:12 AM

   Some startling news, and this is right on the US border. The thing I will be looking for, is where this feud will go next. When you clear one town, the combatants will just push on over to the next.  –Matt

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Mexico army to take over policing in drug-hit city

Wed Mar 4, 2009 7:09pm EST

By Robin Emmott

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico’s army will take over the local police force in the border city of Ciudad Juarez where it helped quell a deadly prison riot on Wednesday in its widening war against drug gangs.

Soldiers poured into the city this week to restore order after 250 people died in February in a feud between drug gangs, which are often aided by corrupt police.

Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, and home to foreign-owned factories that export to the United States, has become the main flashpoint in President Felipe Calderon’s two-year-old war against drug smugglers.

Some of the several thousand troops expected in Ciudad Juarez by the end of this week will take over the municipal police, local jails and police traffic department.

On Wednesday they helped federal police quash a fight between drug gang inmates in a prison on the city’s edge that left 20 people dead.

“General Galvan will appoint soldiers to take control of the municipal police next week,” a spokesman for the Ciudad Juarez mayor’s office said, referring to Defense Minister General Guillermo Galvan.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told Reuters on Tuesday the government is deeply worried about the killings in Ciudad Juarez, which have sparked fears that the war between drug cartels might spill over to the United States.

The U.S. and Canadian governments have warned tourists to stay away from dangerous border cities this spring. Mexico is a prime destination for college students traveling on spring break vacations.

Mexico’s army has increasingly taken over police operations to stiffen the resolve of agents who are often bribed to join the cartels or killed if they do not.

POLICE CHIEF QUIT

Ciudad Juarez’s previous police chief, Roberto Orduna, quit two weeks ago after drug hitmen murdered his deputy and another officer and pledged a police murder every 48 hours until he resigned.

Soldiers in Humvees backed by helicopters supported police as they brought a prison in the desert outside Ciudad Juarez under control after the riot.

Inmates from a drug gang known as the “Aztecas” seized a guard’s keys at the state penitentiary and opened cell doors, freeing 170 prisoners who went on a rampage.

“They attacked other prisoners in a high-security area with iron bars and home-made firearms,” said Victor Valencia, the state government representative in the city.

The Aztecas are believed to be allied to the Juarez cartel, which is fighting Mexico’s most-wanted man, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, for control of smuggling routes into the United States.

That feud is the most violent outbreak of a drug war that killed more than 6,000 people in Mexico last year.

Mexico’s army hopes to have 7,500 soldiers and federal police in Ciudad Juarez by the end of this week. They will patrol the streets and man checkpoints at the airport and on bridges across the Rio Grande into Texas.

Story Here

 

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