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.