Pentagon, DHS Divided On Military’s Role at Border

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A proposal to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to counter drug trafficking has triggered a bureaucratic standoff between the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security over the military’s role in domestic affairs, according to officials in both departments.

The debate has engaged a pair of powerful personalities, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in what their subordinates describe as a turf fight over who should direct the use of troops to assist in the fight against Mexican cartels and who should pay for them.

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Border – Gunmen Open Fire On Arizona Fish And Game Employees

The Arizona Game and Fish Department is reviewing procedures on work near the Mexico border after three government employees were fired on east of Arivaca Lake last week.

Two Game and Fish employees and an employee with Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation, were fired at Thursday by a group of men while scouting for a land access project.

“This is the first time in recent history that our employees have been fired at on the border,” said Leonard Ordway, supervisor for Game and Fish’s Southern Arizona region.

The incident happened about eight miles east of Interstate 19 just south of Tumacacori, and about 15 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. None of the agency employees was injured.

According to Game and Fish, the three were riding all-terrain vehicles through a small canyon area about four miles east of Arivaca Lake when they came across at least four Hispanic males dressed in camouflage.

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Massive, Elaborate Tunnel Found At Mexican Border

Adam Housley reports live from the site in Nogales Mexico where a massive tunnel has been discovered.

We got tipped off late Wednesday evening and within a few hours we were on a plane and then on the road arriving in Nogales just as the sun peaked over the Sonoran Desert. Our contacts had told us of an elaborate tunnel, one of the best they’ve ever found, running 45 feet or so on the Mexican side of the border, then extending another 38 feet into the United States.

[...]

The Mexican Federal Police tell me in Spanish that the tunnel started in an abandoned white house just a few feet from where we are standing. The tunnel then stretches under the border fence about six feet under ground, headed towards a building that had recently lost its tenant on the U.S. side. It is about three feet high and wide with bricks and boards fortifying the sides and metal bars holding the roof. They tell me I could easily crawl through the tunnel with a back back (I am 6′3″) and the tunnel was likely being financed and built by the Gulf Cartel, a dangerous gang of thugs who have been terrorizing much of this area.

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11 Bodies, Some Mutilated Found In Car Near US Border

Mexican police found 11 bodies in an abandoned vehicle near the U.S. border on Thursday, some with their hands and legs cut off and left with threatening messages scrawled by suspected drug hit men.

The bodies of the men, who were shot to death, were found in the northwestern state of Sonora in a stolen SUV with Arizona plates, the state attorney general’s office said.

A state attorney general’s office spokesman said drug cartels were likely behind the attack, although he declined to give details about the messages left on the bodies.

The killings came a day after drug gangs shot up a police station in a nearby town as violence flared in the state dominated by Mexico’s top trafficker, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.

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Passports Become Mandatory at Mexico, Canada Borders

New rules requiring passports or new high-tech documents to cross the United States’ northern and southern borders are taking effect Monday, as some rue the tightening of security and others hail it as long overdue.

The rules are being implemented nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks and long after the 9/11 Commission recommended the changes. They were delayed by complaints from state officials who worried the restrictions would hinder the flow of people and commerce and affect border towns dependent on international crossings.

In 2001 a driver’s license and an oral declaration of citizenship were enough to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders; Monday’s changes are the last step in a gradual ratcheting up of the rules. Now thousands of Americans are preparing by applying for passports or obtaining special driver’s licenses that can also be used to cross the border.

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Vials Used In Ebola Research Smuggled Into US – Scientist Arrested

A Canadian scientist has been arrested for smuggling 22 vials stolen from Canada’s National Microbiology Lab, used in Ebola and HIV research, into the United States, Canadian and US officials said Wednesday.

Konan Michel Yao, 42, “was taken into custody” while crossing the border from Manitoba province into the western US state of North Dakota on May 5, said a spokeswoman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which operates the lab.

According to US prosecutor Lynn Jordheim, Yao was detained for carrying unidentified biological materials in vials wrapped in aluminium foil inside a glove and packaged in a plastic bag, along with electrical wires, in the trunk of his car.

Yao said in an affidavit he stole the vials, described as research vectors, from the Winnipeg lab on his last day of work there on January 21.

He told US border guards he was taking them to his new job with the National Institutes of Health at the Biodefense Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland.

US authorities feared their contents could pose a terrorist threat. But tests later showed “they are not hazardous,” said Jordheim.

“This turned out not to be a terrorism-related case,” he said by telephone from North Dakota. “It appears to be exactly as he Yao said. However, he still faces possible charges for smuggling the vials into the United States.”

Yao, meanwhile, remains in US custody after waiving his right to bail and preliminary hearings, as he awaits a possible grand jury indictment for smuggling, he said.

A Public Health Agency of Canada spokeswoman told AFP Yao “was working on vaccines for the Ebola virus and HIV, among other things.”

“But he only had access to harmless and non-infectious materials, similar to what you’d find in a hospital or university lab. He did not have access to dangerous materials.”

via Source

Sinaloa Cartel Threatens Use Of Deadly Force in U.S.

The reputed head of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against competitors and law enforcement north of the border, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said.

Such a move by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted fugitive, would mark a turn from the cartel’s previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations in the U.S. — either with law enforcement officers or rival traffickers.

Police and federal agents in Arizona said they had recently received at least two law enforcement alerts focused on Guzman’s reported orders that his smugglers should “use their weapons to defend their loads at all costs.”

Guzman is thought to have delivered the message personally in early March, during a three-day gathering of his associates in Sonoita, a Mexican town a few miles south of the Arizona border, according to confidential U.S. intelligence bulletins sent to several state and federal law enforcement officials, who discussed them on the condition of anonymity.

The Sonoita meeting is considered one of several signs that Guzman is becoming more brazen even in the face of a Mexican government crackdown on his activities and continued turf rivalries with other traffickers.

Information from informants, wiretaps and other sources have prompted a flurry of warnings to authorities in U.S. border states, instructing them to use extreme caution when confronting people suspected of smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants from Mexico or ferrying weapons and cash south from the United States, officials familiar with those warnings said.

Some U.S. intelligence officials suggested Guzman was on the defensive because of enforcement efforts on both sides of the border and because he can no longer afford to ditch valuable cargoes when challenged by rivals or authorities.
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Swine Flu – Mexico Shuts Government Says Pandemic Imminent

Mexico’s president told citizens on Wednesday to stay home for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy, after the World Health Organization raised its alert level and said a swine flu pandemic was imminent.

In his first televised address since the crisis erupted last week, President Felipe Calderon told Mexicans to stay home with their families. The country will suspend non-essential work and services, including some government ministries, from May 1-5.

“There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus,” Calderon said.

Mexico is taking the drastic step after another 17 deaths were potentially linked to swine flu, bringing the total to as many as 176.

Essential services such as transport, supermarkets, trash collection and hospitals will remain open.

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Swine Flu News Updates

Hezbollah Uses Mexican Drug Routes Into U.S.

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America’s tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S. Read more

Drug Cartels New Weapons Pushes Mexico Towards Edge

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.

These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.

“There is an arms race between the cartels,” said Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government.

“One group gets rocket-propelled grenades, the other has to have them.”

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Police: U.S. Teens Were Hit Men For Mexican Cartel

Prosecutors say they quickly discovered these two teenagers were homegrown assassins, hired to carry out the dirty work of the notorious Gulf Cartel.

“There are sleeper cells in the U.S.,” said Detective Garcia. “They’re here, they’re here in the United States.”

The cases against Cardona and Reta — both are in prison serving long prison sentences for murder — shed new light into the workings of the drug cartels.

Prosecutor and investigators say Reta and Cardona were recruited into a group called “Los Zetas,” a group made up of former members of the Mexican special military forces. They’re considered ruthless in how they carry out attacks. “Los Zetas” liked what they saw in Cardona and Reta.

Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.

The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.

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Homeland Security Plans For Violence On US Border

Tighter gun control and stronger law enforcement in Southwestern states were recommended Thursday by lawmakers concerned about drug violence in Mexico possibly spilling across the border.

The escalating violence — which has killed thousands, mostly south of the border — has been blamed on Mexican drug cartels which one Homeland Security official described as the biggest organized crime threat facing the United States.

Roger Rufe, Homeland Security’s head of operations, outlined the agency’s plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other agencies are overwhelmed.

Echoing comments a day earlier from President Barack Obama, Rufe said there currently was no need to militarize the Southwestern border with Mexico, despite violence that threatens to migrate into the United States.

“We would take all resources short of DoD (Defense Department) and National Guard troops before we reach that tipping point,” Rufe told lawmakers on a House homeland security subcommittee. “We very much do not want to militarize our border.”

Rufe did not specify what circumstances would trigger a call for troops.

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General: Drug Cartels Are Linked To Terrorism

The head of the U.S. National Guard Bureau,  Gen. Craig McKinley said the link between terrorism and drug cartels along the United States’ border with Mexico is increasingly clear.

He went on to say the National Guard will be critical in helping protect the United States in the event of a terrorist attack and the growing threat of violent drug cartels operating along the Southwestern border with Mexico.

McKinley said the drug cartels in Latin America are clearly connected to organized criminal groups who support and funnel money to terrorist organizations.

“The Southwest border is one of the most critical areas in the nation right now,” McKinley said.

“The nature of the drug cartels along the Southwest border is becoming increasingly menacing, and the linkages between drug cartels through organized crime back to terrorist organizations cannot be disputed.”

via Source.

Threat of Mexican Drug Cartels Near Crisis

Two of Mexico’s deadliest drug cartels have reached a combined force of 100,000 foot soldiers, wreaking havoc across the country and threatening U.S. border states, the U.S. Defense Department told The Washington Times.

The cartels rival the Mexican army in size and have both Mexico and the U.S. in crisis mode as they deal with what they fear is a coming insurgency along the border.

“It’s moving to crisis proportions,” an unidentified defense official told The Times. The official also said the cartels have reached a size where they are on par with Mexico’s army of 130,000.

About 7,000 people have died in the last year — more than 1,000 in January alone — at the hands of Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels. Murders often involve beheadings or bodies dissolved in vats of acid.

The two most dangerous cartels are the Sinaloa cartel, nicknamed the “Federation” or “Golden Triangle” by law enforcement agencies, and “Los Zetas” (the Gulf Cartel). They have been growing and are reportedly discussing a truce or merger to better withstand government forces, The Times reported.

Mexico is now only behind Pakistan and Iran as a U.S. national security concern, coming in ahead of Afghanistan and Iraq, the defense official told The Times.

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Mexico Send In Military To Restore Order

The Mexican government will deploy 1,000 more federal police officers as part of a wider effort to restore order in Ciudad Juarez, the nation’s most violent city, officials said Monday.

Some of those uniformed federal officers began arriving in the border city Monday, two days after about 2,000 soldiers landed there in a related military buildup. Those soldiers were the first of an expected 5,000 additional troops who will be sent to help perform basic police functions.

The military reinforcements will bring to more than 7,000 the number of soldiers in Ciudad Juarez.

The nation’s public safety chief, Genaro Garcia Luna, said that along with the soldiers, he planned to dispatch the additional 1,000 federal police officers, Notimex news agency reported.

About 425 federal officers already had been posted in Ciudad Juarez, where the death toll last year exceeded 1,600, the highest in a country racked by drug-related violence.

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