Mexico's Drug War - Page 18

MEXICO CITY – Mexican soldiers seized nearly 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of drugs from the cargo area of an Aeromexico commercial plane scheduled to fly to the northern border city of Tijuana, the military said Saturday.

Agents discovered the shipment Friday at the airport in Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, the Defense Department said in a statement.

They confiscated about 100 pounds (50 kilograms) of crystal methamphetamine, 60 pounds (30 kilograms) of heroin and 20 pounds (10 kilograms) of methylphenidate, which is often used to cut heroin, according to the statement. There were no arrests.

The Defense Department did not say how the drugs were discovered or give further details on the shipment.

Phone calls to Aeromexico representatives rang unanswered Saturday.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Suspected drug cartel gunmen hurled grenades, burned vehicles and blocked streets in a rapid series of attacks in Mexico's second-largest city, authorities said Wednesday.

The seven attacks within two hours late Tuesday appear to have been coordinated, and were staged by drug gangs, possibly in retaliation for the arrests of their members, said Fernando Guzman Perez, interior secretary of Jalisco state, where the city of Guadalajara is located. A policeman and two transportation workers were injured in the attacks.

"This is an orchestrated attack by criminal forces," Guzman Perez said. "There have been arrests ... of people linked to these cells of organized crime, and perhaps it was because of those detentions that attacks over the past few hours broke out."

Assailants hurled a grenade at a police station and burned a bus and commuter trains to block streets, injuring transportation workers who tried to resist, he said.

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico – Gunmen killed a retired army general who took over a month ago as police chief of the violence-wracked Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, the government of northern Tamaulipas state said Thursday. Two of his bodyguards also were slain and two suffered wounds.

City Public Safety chief Manuel Farfan was attacked late Wednesday, the office of Tamaulipas state Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco said in a statement. It did not indicate who was suspected.

Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, has been the scene of bloody drug-gang turf battles.

Farfan had received telephone threats since taking over as the city's top public safety official Jan. 1.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Three teenage boys were shot to death in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, at least two of them U.S. citizens and high school students in Texas, authorities said Monday.

The boys were killed at 4:22 p.m. Saturday while looking at cars in a dealership in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, Chihuahua prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said. One was found inside a white Jeep Cherokee and the other two in the courtyard.

There were no leads on suspects or a motive, Sandoval said. Two managers were also in the dealership during the attack. One refused to give a statement, while the statement from the other manager was not released because of the pending investigation, Sandoval added. At least 60 bullet casings were found at the scene.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Mexican authorities say they are investigating the disappearance of three relatives of a human-rights activist who was assassinated last year in the Juarez valley along the U.S. border with Texas.

Chihuahua state prosecutors spokesman Arturo Sandoval says the office received a complaint that three people related to Josefina Reyes were forced from their car Monday southeast of the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Demonstrators gathered Tuesday outside the regional office of Mexico's federal attorney general in Ciudad Juarez to protest the disappearance of two of Reyes' siblings and her sister-in-law.

Reyes was slain a year ago in Ciudad Juarez. She had led protests against alleged abuses by Mexican soldiers in the Juarez valley.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen barged into a bar in the battered border city of Ciudad Juarez and opened fire late Thursday, killing seven women and one man, authorities said.

Three other people were wounded at the "Las Torres" bar and were in critical condition, said Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for Chihuahua state prosecutors.

Sandoval said investigators were still trying to determine who was behind the attack.

Ciudad Juarez is the center of a fierce turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels, and has become one of the world's most dangerous cities. More than 3,000 people were killed last year in the city of 1.3 million residents across from El Paso, Texas.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Armed men opened fire and hurled a grenade into a crowded nightclub early Saturday, killing six people and wounding at least 37 in a western city whose former tranquility has been shattered by escalating battles among drug cartels.

The attack in Mexico's second-largest municipality took place just hours after a shootout between soldiers and presumed cartel gunmen left eight people, including an innocent driver, dead in the northeastern city of Monterrey. Monterrey is Mexico's third-largest city.

In the Guadalajara attack, assailants in a Jeep Cherokee and a taxi drove up to the Butter Club, located in a bar and restaurant district popular with young people, and sprayed it with bullets.

Some of the men then got out of the taxi and threw a grenade into the nightclub entrance, said a police official, who spoke to news media at the scene and left without giving his name. The gunmen fled after the pre-dawn attack, he said.

Three were killed at the scene and three more died later in hospitals, said Medical Services Director Yannick Nordin. A Venezuelan and a Colombian were among the dead.

On February 09 2011 11:58 zorrillo1 wrote:
Things getting uglier as we speak (write?).

Videos of a shooting in a shopping mall

http://neglectedwar.com/blog/archives/2379

Eight people have been gunned down by suspected drug gang hitmen in two incidents on the outskirts of Mexico City,

Armed men opened fire from a vehicle on a crowd of people in a street on Sunday morning, killing seven.

An hour later, police found a woman's naked body dumped on the side of a road - an apparent gunshot victim.

Despite its high crime rates and reputation for kidnappings, Mexico City has been seen as somewhat of a safe haven for small businesses fleeing even worse drug violence raging elsewhere in the country, especially near the US border.

The latest killings come one day after armed men opened fire and hurled a grenade into a crowded nightclub in the city of Guadalajara, killing six people and wounding at least 37.

It was the second grenade attack on a Guadalajara bar in less than a month, following an argument between gunmen and musicians on January 16 which ended in a blast that killed two people.

The latest attack in Guadalajara took place just hours after a shootout between soldiers and presumed cartel gunmen left eight people, including an innocent driver, dead in the northeastern city of Monterrey.

Monterrey is at the intersection of several highways - often used as drug smuggling routes - heading north into the US.

Two rival drug organisations, the Gulf cartel and their former allies, the Zetas, are battling for control of the area.

The incidents in Monterrey and Guadalajara brought the overall death toll of this weekend's drug-related violence to at least 38.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Mexicans took to the streets in their hundreds to protest a staggering surge in drug-related violent crime nationwide that claimed at least 45 lives in one weekend.

"No more violence, no more lack of safety, no more corrupt politicians, let's move ahead with citizen candidates," marchers on the touristy Paseo de la Reforma shouted after at least 45 people died in Monterrey and Guadalajara, and the northern state of Chihuahua.

Demonstrators marched to the Senate to unveil an appeal for tougher anti-drug laws.

The attacks were the latest deadly violence gripping Mexico's war on drugs, as the country's various criminal cartels struggle over turf and the government uses police and soldiers in an attempt to crush them.

MEXICO CITY – Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were shot Tuesday afternoon in the line of duty in Mexico, according to an ICE statement.

The agents assigned to the ICE Attache office in Mexico City were attacked by unknown assailants while driving between Mexico City and the northern city of Monterrey.

There were no details on their condition or the precise location of the shooting.

The Mexican President's Office and Mexican immigration officials said they had no information on the attack.

Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence from warring drug cartels and a crackdown on organized crime, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked.

But the U.S. government has increasingly become concerned about the safety of its employees in Mexico amid the escalating violence.

MONTERREY, Mexico – Two police officers were arrested Wednesday in the killing of the top intelligence officer in Mexico's northern Nuevo Leon state, including one who acted as his bodyguard.

Nuevo Leon Attorney General Adrian De La Garza said the two state officers are suspected in the kidnap and killing of Homero Salcido Trevino, director of the state's intelligence and security center.

De La Garza said one of the officers worked as Salcido's bodyguard, but he gave no details at a news conference Wednesday on what led to the arrests, or a motive.

Salcido's body was found Monday in a smoldering car in Monterrey, Mexico's third-largest city.

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Four men with their hands and feet tied and heads covered in duct tape were thrown 600 feet to their deaths from a bridge Friday, authorities said as Mexico's increasingly bloody drug battles reached a new level of cruelty and intimidation.

The four were among 12 people slain Friday in Guerrero, which has seen a spike in violence since rival factions of the Beltran Leyva cartel began fighting over territory after leader Arturo Beltran Leyva died in a battle with Mexican marines in December 2009. The other eight were killed in the resort city of Acapulco.

The unidentified men were dropped from a 600-feet-high (200-meter) bridge near the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo, the Guerrero state Public Safety Department said.

The men had bruises all over their bodies and "it's presumed they were thrown alive from the Solidarity bridge," the statement said.

Drug gang members have taken increasingly drastic measures seeking to intimidate rivals, from beheadings to skinning their victims.