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UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYINSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF VIOLENT GROUPSDAILY BORDER NEWS REPORT FOR 22 NOVEMBER 2011COMPILER, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF VIOLENT GROUPS ()EDITOR, JOINT TASK FORCE NORTH (USA.JTFN)(U) This document is UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY and portions may be exempt from mandatory disclosure under FOIA. DoD 5400.7R, "DoD Freedom of Information Act Program", DoD Directive 5230.9, "Clearance of DoD Information for Public Release", and DoD Instruction 5230.29, "Security and Policy Review of DoD Information for Public Release" apply.(U) FAIR USE NOTICE. This document may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making it available to recipients who have expressed an interest in receiving information to advance their understanding of threat activities in the interest of protecting the United States. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.(U) Use of these news items does not reflect official endorsement by Joint Task Force North or the Department of Defense.For further information on any item, please contact the JTF-North Knowledge Management (KM).Compiled By: Mr. Tom Davidson, Institute for the Study of Violent GroupsEdited by: Mr. Jonathan KauppApproved for Release by: Dr. Rodler MorrisCONTENTS: (Note: All active EXTERNAL hyperlinks have been removed)Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1.CANADA AND NORTHERN BORDER STATES PAGEREF _Toc309708239 \h 3A.Surveillance Ends at B.C. Street Corner (BC) PAGEREF _Toc309708240 \h 3B.Police Say Arrest Is Latest Chapter in Long History of Drug Dealing (NY) PAGEREF _Toc309708241 \h 5C.Police Forces in Western Canada Combine in Saskatchewan Cocaine Bust (SK/AB/BC) PAGEREF _Toc309708242 \h 6D.Deported Man Paid $4,000 To Sneak Back into Canada, Reveals Thriving People Smuggling Industry (QC) PAGEREF _Toc309708243 \h 6E.Report Claims Border Patrol Too Aggressive (NY) PAGEREF _Toc309708244 \h 82.INNER UNITED STATES PAGEREF _Toc309708245 \h 9A.11 Charged in Cocaine Ring (TN) PAGEREF _Toc309708246 \h 9B.Cocaine Ring Shattered, 6 Memphis-Area Nightclubs Closed (TN) PAGEREF _Toc309708247 \h 10C.Cartel Member Involved in Charleston Cocaine Distribution Arrested (SC) PAGEREF _Toc309708248 \h 11D.Upscale Florida Town in Fight over Immigrant Prison (FL) PAGEREF _Toc309708249 \h 12E.Homeland Security Officials Bust Alleged Mexican Gang Members in East Harlem (NY) PAGEREF _Toc309708250 \h 13F.'Lone Wolf' Terror Suspect Arrested in New York (NY) PAGEREF _Toc309708251 \h 14G.Pro-Immigrant Groups Protest against Georgia Detention Center (GA) PAGEREF _Toc309708252 \h 163.MEXICO AND SOUTHERN BORDER STATES PAGEREF _Toc309708253 \h 17A.Mexico Asks U.S. to Extradite Alleged Gunrunners (DF) PAGEREF _Toc309708254 \h 17B.Local Officials Say Emergency Plans for Spillover Violence in Place (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708255 \h 18C.Mexico Names Intelligence Chief Interior Minister (DF) PAGEREF _Toc309708256 \h 19D.Drug Cartels Recruiting Texas Teens (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708257 \h 20E.Battle for the Border: Spillover Violence Changes the Way Police Work Street (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708258 \h 21F.Battle for the Border: Police Trying to Stay Ahead of Cartels (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708259 \h 22G.Entire Police Department Arrested in Mexico (SIN) PAGEREF _Toc309708260 \h 23H.Shootout Simulation Held at Mexico School (CHIH) PAGEREF _Toc309708261 \h 24I.Covering Cartels Is Risky Business, Says Mexican Journalist (SIN) PAGEREF _Toc309708262 \h 25J.Official: Drug Cartel Tried To Skew Mexico Vote (MICH) PAGEREF _Toc309708263 \h 26K.Cartel Castles in Mexico Evidence of Drug Money (SON) PAGEREF _Toc309708264 \h 27L.Mexican Marines Nab 14 Members of Zetas Cartel (VER) PAGEREF _Toc309708265 \h 28M.Former Mexico Cartel Leader's Nephew Indicted in Texas (TX/TAMPS) PAGEREF _Toc309708266 \h 29N.Two Arrested, $1.8 Million Worth of Cocaine Seized in Colton, CA (CA) PAGEREF _Toc309708267 \h 30O.Bill Would Fight Drug Smugglers Using Ultralight Aircraft (DC) PAGEREF _Toc309708268 \h 31P.Did Agents in Texas Let Guns 'Walk' into Mexico? (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708269 \h 32Q.Summary of Events PAGEREF _Toc309708270 \h 34R.Cell Phones Aid in Border Smuggling (CA) PAGEREF _Toc309708271 \h 36S.Teen Arrested Trying To Smuggle Ammunition into Mexico (AZ) PAGEREF _Toc309708272 \h 38T.Human-Smuggling Boat Stopped off Seal Beach (CA) PAGEREF _Toc309708273 \h 38U.19-Year-Old Arrested Trying To Smuggle Sniper-Style Rifle out of US (AZ) PAGEREF _Toc309708274 \h 39V.Matamoros Man Sentenced in Immigrant Smuggling Ring (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708275 \h 39W.Prosecutor: Third Man Missing Along with Mexican Newspaper Workers (MEX) PAGEREF _Toc309708276 \h 40X.Report Shows Cross Border Violence Threat Low (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708277 \h 41Y.Seven Charged with Kidnapping in San Juan (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708278 \h 42Z.Houston Muslims Question FBI Terror Tactics (TX) PAGEREF _Toc309708279 \h 43AA.Cartel Activity Likely To Rise in New Mexico (NM) PAGEREF _Toc309708280 \h 44BB.Human Remains Found near Rio Rico (AZ) PAGEREF _Toc309708281 \h 46CC.CBP Busts Three Women with ‘Date-Rape’ Drug at Morley Port (AZ) PAGEREF _Toc309708282 \h 47DD.Killings Triple in Once Touristy Acapulco (GRO) PAGEREF _Toc309708283 \h 47EE.Mexico City- Two Clandestine Factories Where Synthetic Drugs Are Produced- Dismantled! (MICH) PAGEREF _Toc309708284 \h 49FF.Decapitated Animals Left As Warning to Narco Criminals in Guerrero State (GRO) PAGEREF _Toc309708285 \h 494.CARRIBEAN, CENTRAL, AND SOUTH AMERICA PAGEREF _Toc309708286 \h 50A.Ecuadorean Police Seize Almost Half a Ton of Cocaine (EC) PAGEREF _Toc309708287 \h 50B.Juan Manuel Santos: Britons Who Take Cocaine Are Destroying Colombia (CO) PAGEREF _Toc309708288 \h 515.OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGEREF _Toc309708289 \h 52A.Mexico Gives Muddled Response to Damning Human Rights Report (MX) PAGEREF _Toc309708290 \h 52B.Politics Turns Border Woes into Sideshow (US/MX) PAGEREF _Toc309708291 \h 54C.Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 8: 230,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Mexico and ‘Narco-Refugee’ Potentials for the United States (US/MX) PAGEREF _Toc309708292 \h 55D.Effects of Mexican Drug War Lasting, Far-Reaching (US/MX) PAGEREF _Toc309708293 \h 58E.Cease-Fire in the War on Drugs? (CO) PAGEREF _Toc309708294 \h 60F.Mexico's War with Itself (MX) PAGEREF _Toc309708295 \h 62G.Rising Danger in the Aftermath of the Iranian Assassination Plot (MX) PAGEREF _Toc309708296 \h 63CANADA AND NORTHERN BORDER STATESSurveillance Ends at B.C. Street Corner (BC) 18 November 2011The Star-Phoenix The road to Calgary is a wave of green as Rider fans head to an away game.They share the Trans-Canada Highway with another Saskatchewan team. Still in the same wrinkled clothes they wore through a long night, these men and women are in a line of cars, trucks and vans on a cloak-and-dagger mission.In the lead is a silver van these Mounties have been surreptitiously tailing since it pulled out of an abandoned farmyard in the dead of night, several hours earlier. There, near the Saskatchewan-U.S. border, officers watched as 19 bags of ecstasy pills, destined for the United States, were exchanged for 30 one-kilogram bricks, believed to be cocaine journeying from Mexico through the U.S. to Canada.Working together, the surveillance team has a firmer grip on the movement of that van than the Riders have on the football this first weekend in October. This is the climax of Project Faril, an investigation targeting what could go down in Saskatchewan RCMP annals as the largest drug bust in its history - or the biggest flop if things go sideways.Nobody wants to drop the ball now. The Regina integrated drug unit (RIDU) officers have been building this case for five months.Their game plan is a bigger secret than the opposing football team's playbook. In May, in the early days of Project Faril, this same team tracked another load from the border to discover its delivery point in B.C. At one point, a uniformed Mountie in a marked squad car from a southwest detachment - out doing his job - got suspicious about a vehicle and started following, unaware of Project Faril or the surveillance in play by the RIDU at that moment."It could have blown it right there," recalls Staff Sgt. Bruce Spencer. A Mountie with almost four decades on the job, he heads up RIDU and a young team of mostly late 20-and 30-somethings. Several juggle young families and the unpredictable demands of chasing drug dealers in secret."I have a very understanding wife," says Mike, a constable. "She knows at the drop of a hat we could be gone." (Most officers involved in Project Faril have asked not to be identified by their full names for security purposes.)Gone - but not knowing where or why. Rob, a corporal on whose office walls hang a couple commendations for his drug work, remembers how one trip for Project Faril began as two days - and stretched to 11. Rob's wife does not ask the standard questions when he disappears. She just wants to know if he will be safe.On this day, RIDU officers are in Great Falls, Mont., where their U.S. counterparts are tracking the pills; in Vancouver, B.C., where they and officers from that area are keeping watch on two men who are targets in Project Faril; and are on the Alberta highway in a high stakes game of follow-the-leader with a Ford Windstar van.The highway team - led by the surveillance pros from Regina and Saskatoon's Special O units and assisted by the RIDU - gets a slight reprieve as the van nears trafficcongested Calgary. In a seamless transition, Mounties from that city take over surveillance on streets more familiar to them than the Saskatchewan crew.….Source: [Surveillance+ends+street+corner/5729814/story.html](Return to Contents)Police Say Arrest Is Latest Chapter in Long History of Drug Dealing (NY)18 November 2011The Buffalo NewsThe suspect masqueraded as a 40-year-old unemployed Town of Tonawanda construction worker, but secretly prospered as one of the region's biggest and most tenacious drug dealers, law enforcement leaders said Thursday.He knew the ins and outs of the illegal trade and was not afraid to take risks, even if it involved his family.His mother perished in 1992 when one of three masked intruders broke into the family's North Buffalo home and fired a shotgun into her stomach while searching for him, whom authorities had described as a known drug dealer.Seven years later, he was swept up in a raid on a drug ring that distributed more than 220 pounds of cocaine in Buffalo and its suburbs, with sales in excess of $1 million.On Tuesday, federal agents and state and local police knew they were in the right place when they arrived at his home, 19 St. Amelia Drive. Even before the raid, they caught the pungent odor of marijuana outside the house. Inside his house, investigators seized 100 pounds of pot, plus 20 pounds of cocaine and about $150,000 in cash."He was high-level, command and control. He could pick up the phone and call major suppliers, but this has essentially disemboweled him. Without drugs and money, he's out of business," said the resident agent in charge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's Buffalo office.Like 19 years ago, when the suspect’s mother was killed confronting the intruders at the family's Carmel Road home, where they had come for the suspect’s drug money, he was once again living with family -- his 95-year-old grandmother, and his three children, ages 16, 11 and 8.The grandmother, in fact, ended up in the middle of his illegal undertakings on Tuesday, authorities said. She was a passenger in her grandson's car as he drove to the Southtowns to deliver 4 ounces of cocaine. When DEA agents stopped his vehicle on Route 20A, he suddenly raced away.Moments later as he drove at a high rate of speed, the suspect lost control of his vehicle and flipped it over at Route 20A and Two Road Road in the Town of Wales, agents said.The suspect, unscathed, climbed out of the vehicle leaving behind his elderly grandmother hanging upside down by her seat belt. She suffered minor injuries. The suspect did not get far. DEA agents soon arrested him.Back in the Town of Tonawanda, agents and police found his huge drug inventory stored on shelves in an unlocked room. Despite the strong odor of the un-smoked marijuana, his family members said they had no idea he was involved in the illegal enterprise, authorities said.….Source: [incoming/article637237.ece](Return to Contents)Police Forces in Western Canada Combine in Saskatchewan Cocaine Bust (SK/AB/BC)18 November (Canadian Press)Cocaine, vehicles and thousands of dollars in cash have been seized after a lengthy investigation into an alleged scheme to distribute the drug in Saskatoon and rural communities in Saskatchewan.Charges have also been laid against four men following Project Folsom — a seven-month probe that involved the RCMP and municipal police across Saskatchewan, as well as in Calgary and Vancouver.Police say the investigation included the execution of four search warrants at residences in Saskatoon between October and earlier this month.An additional search was done at a residence in Vancouver, British Columbia.Christopher Chu, Joshua Hoeber, Christopher Pang and Bennet Tse face charges ranging from trafficking in cocaine to possession of the proceeds of crime.The suspects, who range in age from 23 to 31, will make court appearances in Saskatoon over the next few weeks and police say further charges may be laid.Source: [portal/site/main/template.MAXIMIZE/?javax.portlet.tpst=11e9920d8e416ea3d484bd1050315ae8_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_11e9920d8e416ea3d484bd1050315ae8_viewID=story&javax.portlet.prp_11e9920d8e416ea3d484bd1050315ae8_topic_display_name=Saskatchewan%20News&javax.portlet.prp_11e9920d8e416ea3d484bd1050315ae8_topic_name=Saskatchewan&javax.portlet.prp_11e9920d8e416ea3d484bd1050315ae8_news_item_id_key=14632012&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken](Return to Contents)Deported Man Paid $4,000 To Sneak Back into Canada, Reveals Thriving People Smuggling Industry (QC)17 November 2011The National PostIt took a few hours riding in a car and a short muddy walk that ended with $4,000 in cash passed to a pair of alien smugglers, but those were the only obstacles Shaid Uddin faced in getting into Canada despite a previous deportation.“With the help of my friend I met a Pakistani smuggler in a restaurant in New York. He promised to bring me to Canada in exchange for $4,000,” Mr. Uddin told Canadian immigration officials later, when the Bangladeshi national tried to make his presence in Canada legal so he could settle with his wife in Montreal, whom he married over the telephone.Mr. Uddin’s cross-border jaunt, revealed during his immigration fight in the Federal Court of Canada, highlights the porous nature of Canada’s long, unsecured border with the United States and the easy success of a thriving illegal alien smuggling business.“He picked me [up] in his car and drove about 1? hours and then transferred me to two Spanish-speaking guys. They took me into their vehicle and started their journey towards Canada.… They drove about five or six hours,” he recounted.“One of them got out of the vehicle and asked me to follow him. We walked through a bushy area for about 20 minutes after crossing a small swampland.… The Spanish guy told me ‘We are now in Canada.’”Canada’s border with the U.S. is long and porous, which makes it difficult to detect illegal alien smuggling.The smuggler made a call on his cell phone and a car drove up on the Canadian side to collect them. They drove for another hour.He also talked to another person over his cell phone. Another vehicle came over there and we got into the vehicle. They drove for about an hour before reaching Montreal.“As per our agreement, I gave the Spanish guy the promised money of $4,000 and the driver dropped me in front of Plamondon [métro station],” he said.On Vézina St., his wife met him.“Since then we have been living together happily.”Mr. Uddin’s return to Canada went unnoticed by Canadian authorities, despite the fact that he was not legally allowed to return to Canada after a previous deportation. His first arrival in Canada, in 2000, resulted him being denied refugee status. In 2003 he was deported.His return in 2007 was unknown to authorities here until a year and a half later when he applied for permanent residence status. When he applied, he told officials about his illicit border crossing.….Source: [news.2011/11/16/illegal-alien-smuggling-business-thriving-in-canada/](Return to Contents)Report Claims Border Patrol Too Aggressive (NY)21 November 2011Adirondack Daily EnterpriseA report released last week by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Families for Freedom alleges that U.S. Border Patrol agents use aggressive tactics to boost arrest rates, often up to 100 miles away from the border itself.According to the report, entitled "Justice Derailed: What Raids on New York Trains and Buses Reveal about Border Patrol's Interior Enforcement Practices," New Yorkers in communities near the Canadian border have had their constitutional rights and freedoms violated by the Border Patrol.The director of New York University's Immigrant Rights Clinic said in a prepared statement that the Border Patrol's interior enforcement operations often include raids on domestic trains and buses far from the U.S.-Canada border."Our findings paint a disturbing picture of an agency that wrongly believes it has the authority to stop anyone at any time or place within 100 miles of the border and demand proof of their citizenship or immigration status," she said. "Border Patrol tells Congress that it needs money to patrol the border, but instead it is using those funds to arrest and detain immigrants who have lived in the United States for long periods of time."The Congressman whose 23rd Congressional District of New York encompasses a vast swath of land along the Canadian border, says similar issues have not surfaced in the North Country.He told the Enterprise on Monday that he's heard about problems with the Border Patrol in places like Rochester and the Finger Lakes, but not so much in his district."I can't explain the difference here," he said. "I've been hearing about this issue from some farmers and growers. It's hard for me to understand why it's happening in some places but not to the same level of intensity here."NYCLU claims that passengers on buses and trains in border areas have been subjected to potential arrest, detention and deportation due to lack of sufficient documentation. A review of arrests made at the Border Patrol's Rochester station found that transportation raids may have been used to bolster arrest figures, often used as a performance indicator.Between 2006 and 2009, Border Patrol made more than 2,700 transportation arrests, the report states, but less than 1 percent of those were made at an actual border point of entry.The Congressman said the only concerns he has heard in the North Country have come from the Massena area."People have complained about stops by Border Patrol agents," he said. "They will pick a car up, make a stop and ask some questions. The rules are they must have reasonable suspicion. It's a fair question if they ask if someone is a legal citizen. If they say yes, and there's no reason not to believe them, the stop should be terminated and the person should be allowed to go on."The Border Patrol, in cooperation with New York State Police, sometimes stages a checkpoint on state Route 30 in the town of Tupper Lake. A great deal of the arrests made there are low-level drug offenses, usually unlawful possession of marijuana, which is a violation, less serious than a misdemeanor.The Congressman said the focus of Border Patrol activity should be illegal immigration and national security."If those stops are happening over a period of time and you're not seeing those sorts of arrests, it's time to re-think that strategy," he said.A significant portion of tourism and commerce in the North Country is generated by Canadian visitors, and many farmers rely on migrant workers during harvest season. The Congressman said his office has worked well with Border Patrol to keep a diligent eye on what's going on in the North Country without affecting the flow of goods and people across the border.A spokesperson from U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in an email the Border Patrol constantly reviews and adjusts its strategies, and that "intelligence driven transportation checks" like those highlighted in the NYCLU report "are one of many tactics utilized to address emerging threats."Source: [page/content.detail/id/527865/Report-claims-Border-Patrol-too-aggressive.html?nav=5008](Return to Contents)INNER UNITED STATES11 Charged in Cocaine Ring (TN)18 November 2011WREG TVA federal grand jury in Shelby County indicted 11 people with the intent to sell five kilos of cocaine. It's a penalty that can carry up to life in prison and a $10,000,000 fine.The bust is the result a year-long investigation. The drugs were on their way to Memphis, but were seized in Houston, TX.A U.S. Attorney says 10 of the 11 people indicted are in federal custody. Three of them live in Memphis.They were rounded-up within the last 24 hours.The attorney says, if the drugs had made it to Memphis, they would have been sold all over West Tennessee, but thanks to law enforcement organizations working together, they're now off the streets.Also, six businesses have been declared a nuisance by the district attorney’s office.They have been shut down as a result of the investigation.The district attorney’s office says undercover officers purchased cocaine on multiple occasions at the locations.Source: [news/wreg-cocaine-ring,0,5681843.story](Return to Contents)Cocaine Ring Shattered, 6 Memphis-Area Nightclubs Closed (TN)19 November 2011The Commercial AppealLocal authorities call it the [name deleted] Drug Trafficking Organization, a network of characters who bought, packaged and distributed large amounts of cocaine as it was moved from Mexico to Texas to Memphis and West Tennessee.On Friday, the organization was declared disbanded as federal, state and local officials announced the indictments of 29 members of the organization and the seizure of more than $1.6 million and 45 kilograms -- almost 100 pounds -- of cocaine.The 12-month investigation also has resulted in six Hispanic night clubs in Memphis being closed as public nuisances because of drug trafficking and violence."We will continue to attack these drug organizations," said the resident agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Memphis Office. "Our ultimate goal is their destruction, to put them out of business."The case actually began as two separate drug investigations by state and federal authorities and gradually merged as a few main characters became the focus of each probe.The agent in charge said 21 of those indicted are facing state charges, including the two she described as the major players.Both men also face federal drug charges. They are being held in the Shelby County Jail under $2.5 million bond each. All but five of the 29 indicted were in jail early Friday evening.According to the federal indictment, the two and others conspired to purchase large amounts of cocaine from Mexican drug cartels, which was temporarily placed in storage units in Highlands, Texas.When the traffickers picked up the cocaine, they left behind large amounts of cash.The drugs then were taken to storage units in Memphis, where the cocaine was packaged and stored for distribution in the city and surrounding areas.As part of the coordinated investigation, undercover officers in recent months have purchased cocaine numerous times at a half-dozen Hispanic night clubs in Memphis.Officers said in court papers that the purchases were made in the open with no interference from the owners."In general, the pattern of the nuisance activity is well-established and routine at the Club," according to a nuisance petition to close to a sports bar at 3991 Jackson. "An individual, known to management of the Club, is positioned at the bathroom of the Club. That individual sells small quantities of cocaine to patrons of the Club, who, in turn, go inside the bathroom of the Club to consume the cocaine."Prosecutors said they will seek to have the clubs closed permanently and sold at auction.Source: [news/2011/nov/19/cocaine-ring-shattered/](Return to Contents)Cartel Member Involved in Charleston Cocaine Distribution Arrested (SC)18 November 2011WCSC TVThe U.S. Marshals Office says a 35-year-old man with ties to the Mexican cartel has been arrested accused of bringing over large amounts of cocaine into Charleston from Mexico.Authorities say the man was apprehended on Nov. 10, by members of the U.S. Marshals and Direccion Nacional Control de Drogas (DNCD) fugitive task force in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. According to U.S. Marshal officials, the man has been on the run for the past three years. He is charged by the DEA with being part of a large drug organization which filtered substantial amounts of cocaine into the Charleston area from Mexico. He is also charged with laundering money as part of the criminal organization as well. Federal law enforcement agencies were able to track him to the Dominican Republic, who then alerted the authorities in the Dominican Republic.The man has been brought back to Charleston by U.S. Marshals and is currently being housed at the Detention Center.Source: [story/16079946/cartel](Return to Contents)Upscale Florida Town in Fight over Immigrant Prison (FL)19 November 2011Yahoo (AP)In one of South Florida's upscale, rural enclaves, where peacocks roam and horse trails are as common as sidewalks, town leaders decided to bring in much of their money from an unusual business: a prison.Only the leaders of Southwest Ranches kept their plans quiet from residents for almost a decade, and the project has now ballooned into what would be among the federal government's largest immigrant detention centers. The town would have to pay $150,000 each year to keep the prison, but officials say the town would turn a profit by getting 4 percent of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays the company operating the prison to hold inmates there.Many residents finally caught wind of the idea this year, when the immigration agency announced a tentative deal, and they're angry. They've held protests at public meetings, contemplated whether to recall the mayor before his March election and whether to amend the town charter to make it easier to fire the city attorney pushing the deal.The objection over the prison has created an odd set of allies among the town's affluent residents, many of whom are wary of illegal immigrants, and longtime activists who fight for immigrants, legal or not.The proposed facility is part of the federal government's new plan to move immigrants from jails to detention centers it says are better for holding people with no criminal background. The centers are also supposed to be easier to reach for detainees' relatives and lawyers.Plans are in the works for other facilities near San Antonio, Texas, and in Essex County, N.J. and Orange County, Calif. But none of those proposals has drawn the outrage seen in Southwest Ranches, the Fort Lauderdale suburb where telenovelas are filmed in the shaded ranches, and wealthy developers, Miami Dolphins football players and others seek privacy and a country lifestyle.….Source: [news.upscale-fla-town-fight-over-immigrant-prison-172908497.html](Return to Contents)Homeland Security Officials Bust Alleged Mexican Gang Members in East Harlem (NY)16 November 2011NY1Homeland Security officials took down more than two dozen alleged members of a gang with ties to Mexico on Wednesday and NY1's Criminal Justice reporter went along on a raid in East Harlem that resulted in some of the arrests and filed this exclusive report.Officers from the Department of Homeland Security moved in the dark hours of the early morning to take down members of Los Vargos, a Mexican gang they allege terrorized East Harlem and parts of the Bronx."Today along with other teams we are going to be executing about 30 warrants," said one official who asked to not be identified.Twenty-five people were arrested on several charges including attempted murder, gun possession and cocaine sales.NY1's Criminal Justice reporter and a cameraman wore bulletproof vests and were allowed to ride along as officers prepared to make the busts.During their briefing, officers were reminded that it would be a very active scene, with a number of law enforcement agencies arresting people."We don't know what the living conditions are in the building, the apartment, but we are going to attempt to enter, soft entry," said an anonymous law enforcement official.Homeland Security officials insisted that getting members of Los Vargos, or VGS, off the streets makes neighborhoods safer."We learned through the use of federal wiretaps that individuals actually shot at rival gang members. Actually, on one occasion, they hit a rival gang member but did not kill the individual. Their intent was not just to scare but to kill," said the ICE Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge.Los Vargos members often battle the Latin Kings over turf, according to Homeland Security.Six of the individuals arrested were charged with associating with the gang while being in the country illegally and authorities are pushing to deport them."In our mind, we are getting them right before they take the next step and put innocent civilians and sometimes members of their own immigrant communities in danger," said the agent.Federal authorities allege Los Vargos members often rob people and collect dues from members, using that money to get gang members back in the country illegally after they have been deported.Homeland Security officials said they hope to cut that money supply off with the latest arrests.Source: [content/top_stories/150907/ny1-exclusive--homeland-security-officials-bust-alleged-mexican-gang-members-in-east-harlem](Return to Contents)'Lone Wolf' Terror Suspect Arrested in New York (NY)21November 2011CNNAuthorities have arrested a man they claim was plotting to detonate pipe bombs in and around New York, the Mayor said Sunday night.The intended targets of the 27-year-old man were U.S. military personnel who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as U.S. postal facilities and police in New York and Bayonne, New Jersey, according to the Mayor and the New York Police Commissioner.The suspect was described by the Mayor as an "al Qaeda sympathizer," though he is not believed to have ever worked with or received training from anyone in that terrorist organization."There is no evidence he worked with anyone else," the Mayor said. "He appears to be ... a lone wolf."The police commissioner identified the suspect as a follower of a radical American-born cleric who rose to become a top figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The suspect allegedly tried to contact the cleric directly, but never got a response.An unemployed native of the Dominican Republican who is a U.S. citizen, the suspect had lived most of his life in Manhattan, except for five years in Schenectady, New York. He'd had been monitored by authorities since 2009 and his extreme positions "made even some of his like-minded friends nervous," said the Police Commissioner.The commissioner said that the suspect even talked about changing his name to Osama Hussein -- in honor of his now deceased "heroes," long-time al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.Last August, the suspect allegedly decided to carry out the bomb plot. He "jacked up his speed" after September 30, when the cleric was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, according to the police commissioner.After that strike, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released a "eulogy" in which it promised to "retaliate soon" for the deaths of the cleric and three others. That threat prompted the United States to issue a worldwide alert warning of such attacks."We knew for the last two years, he's been reading a lot of jihadist information and talked a lot of inflammatory rhetoric," the police commissioner said of the suspect. "But it appears at this juncture the death of [the cleric] motivated him and made him increase his tempo."The suspect bought ingredients for the three bombs that he was working to make at a large hardware store and other stores, mindful to shop around so as not to "raise red flags," according to the commissioner.He allegedly planned to test an explosive device in a mailbox before using it against other targets. His aim, the police commissioner said, was to show there were "mujahedeen" -- or Islamic militants -- in the city ready to wage "jihad."He was arrested at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in an apartment in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in northern Manhattan, after he began to drill holes in the would-be pipe bomb, the commissioner said. While authorities had monitored him for over two years, they decided to move quickly for fear that device may explode, according to the commissioner."[The suspect’s] behavior morphed from simply talking about such acts to actions -- namely, bomb making," said the commissioner.The suspect allegedly learned how to make a pipe bomb after reading an article entitled "How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom" in Inspire, the al Qaeda terrorist network's English-language online propaganda, recruiting and training magazine. The issue that came out just before the cleric’s death, for instance, emphasized that al Qaeda supporters in the West should take matters into their own hands and launch attacks themselves."He was a reader of al Qaeda's slick online magazine Inspire -- and inspire him it did," the Manhattan District Attorney said. "His stated desire to attack our servicemen and women ... could have come from an al Qaeda playbook."The District Attorney said that his office and other New York authorities had long been "in communication with federal authorities." That said, the suspect was arrested by state law enforcement agents and will be tried in New York courts.Specifically, the district attorney announced that his office filed charges Sunday against the suspect for conspiring to build a bomb for terrorist purposes and possessing a bomb.Neither the Mayor, the commissioner nor the district attorney gave details on where the suspect was being held or when he would appear in court.Source: [edition.2011/11/20/us/new-york-bloomberg-announcement/?hpt=hp_t3](Return to Contents)Pro-Immigrant Groups Protest against Georgia Detention Center (GA)18 November 2011Latin American Herald TribuneA vigil called by a coalition of civil rights organizations on behalf of families of immigrants deprived of their freedom at the Stewart Detention Center in southern Georgia ended Saturday with the arrest of two activists.The director of the Alterna organization and another activist, identified only as Chris, were arrested for supposedly crossing into prison territory without authorization, something denied by the former, who was freed after charges against him were dropped.Under the slogan “No More Profits off Our Pain,” activists and relatives of prisoners protested in Lumpkin, Georgia, about the way these privately run, for-profit detention centers are operated and demanded that they be closed down.“Just look at the pain caused to communities in Georgia by those who make money out of immigrant arrests,” said the director of the Georgia branch of the National Security and Immigrants Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).With banners asking the President to suspend the deportations, activists and prisoners’ families marched to the Stewart Detention Center to denounce the impact that breaking up families has on the children of detainees.“This is an unjust situation and we believe that now is the time to end this obligatory jailing of immigrants, when so often there is no reason for arresting them,” the activist said.The privately run Stewart Detention Center holds close to 2,000 immigrants and is the biggest of its kind in the United States.A case-by-case analysis found that Lumpkin County has the highest proportion of deportations in the United States – 98.8 percent.The activists also demanded better treatment for prisoners, who in many cases say that they are refused medication and treatment when they get sick.According to a report by Georgia Watch Detention, the Stewart Detention Center violates some of the standards set by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, such as denying food and medicine to detainees as punishment.The coalition has repeatedly expressed its opposition to for-profit corporations running detention centers like this.According to a report by the coalition of civil rights organizations, The Detention Watch Network (DWN) reported in 2011 that private companies manage close to 49 percent of detention centers for undocumented immigrants in the country, and three companies with ICE contracts spent more than $20 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2009.According to the coalition, the private prison industry has focused its efforts on gaining greater influence over immigration policies and legislation.According to DWN data, over the past five years the number of immigrants and the cost of their detention have doubled, with 383,524 detained in 2009 at a cost of $1.7 billion – an average of $122 a day for each one.Source: [article.asp?ArticleId=446156&CategoryId=12395](Return to Contents)MEXICO AND SOUTHERN BORDER STATESMexico Asks U.S. to Extradite Alleged Gunrunners (DF)17 November 2011Latin American Herald TribuneMexico’s government has requested the extradition of six U.S. citizens for weapons trafficking, including three people linked to a botched federal gun-tracking operation, Attorney General Marisela Morales said.“We’re going to get to the bottom of this and we’re going to punish ... whomever is responsible for these (crimes),” Morales told the lower house of Mexico’s Congress in reference to the “Fast and Furious” program, which was run out of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Phoenix field office in 2009 and 2010.She said two extradition proceedings are underway against U.S. citizens suspected of smuggling weapons to Mexico.One of the requests involves three people believed to have acquired “a large number of weapons” under the Fast and Furious program, the Mexican attorney general told lawmakers Wednesday.As part of that undercover operation, ATF agents allowed thousands of guns to be illegally acquired from Arizona gun shops by straw purchasers and smuggled into Mexico.The idea behind letting the weapons “walk” across the border was to trace them to powerful drug cartels, but once the program was underway ATF agents realized they had no dependable way to monitor the firearms, ultimately losing track of some 2,000 guns.Weapons traced to Fast and Furious have appeared at more than 100 crime scenes in Mexico and two were found at the location where a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was killed in southern Arizona last December while trying to arrest a group of armed suspects.Morales said the second extradition request involves another three individuals who purchased high-powered weapons in Texas that they later transported to Mexico.The attorney general told lawmakers that another two U.S. citizens are currently on trial in Mexico for smuggling guns and grenades into the country.“We’ve assumed our commitment to inhibit arms smuggling through the effective use of weapons-tracking (software),” she said.Opposition lawmakers have criticized what they say is the Mexican government’s lack of urgency in demanding that Washington investigate and punish those responsible for Fast and Furious.….Source: [article.asp?ArticleId=445482&CategoryId=14091](Return to Contents)Local Officials Say Emergency Plans for Spillover Violence in Place (TX)17 November 2011KRGV TVLocal officials say county emergency plans have been in place to combat spillover violence for a long time. The activity of the cartels is forcing county leaders to update those plans.Cameron and Hidalgo counties admit the threat of spillover along the Rio Grande is real, and officials from both counties say there are plans in place. The Cameron County Emergency Manager says giving out the details would give away their strategic advantage.The Hidalgo County Sheriff, fresh off a trip to Washington, D.C., says the Valley could use more boots on the ground. They need the federal government to step in and provide more money."New Mexico, California, they have about 14 Border Patrol agents per border mile. In Texas, the average is about six per square mile, so we have a porous border and we do need the resources and it’s something Washington needs to make a decision on and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to send that support to the lower Rio Grande Valley,’" the Emergency manager said."I believe Hidalgo County is the safest it's ever been. We all know terrible things are happening in Mexico, and we all know all law enforcement knows that there’s great potential, a really high potential for those things to spill over into our county. And as a matter of a fact, we have proved that it has spilled over," says the sheriff.The sheriff says he wants the federal government to send help to state and local officials. The manager hopes the federal government listens. He also warns Valley officials to come together. He says they need to have one voice, one message about what’s happening on the front lines in the battle for the border.Source: [content/news/story/Local-Officials-Say-Emergency-Plans-for-Spillover/He1M7e-QykWhqt7pVf8wuw.cspx](Return to Contents)Mexico Names Intelligence Chief Interior Minister (DF)17 November 2011ReutersMexico picked the head of the national intelligence agency as the country's new interior minister on Thursday, beefing up the job's security profile as the government attempts to bring violent drug cartels to heel.Alejandro Poire, director of the Center for Research and National Security (CISEN), succeeds Francisco Blake, who was killed in a helicopter crash on Friday.Poire, 40, has never held elected office, and spent more than a year staunchly defending President Felipe Calderon's army-led crackdown on the drug gangs as national security spokesman before he moved to the CISEN in September.The bloody conflict against the gangs has dominated Calderon's presidency, damaging support for his conservative National Action Party and eroding his own popularity."Crime is the biggest threat to our society and our citizens," Calderon said in a televised address, noting that he had chosen Poire "because of his profound knowledge and his vast experience in security matters."More than 45,000 lives have been lost in drug-related violence since Calderon sent in the army to crush the gangs shortly after he took power in December 2006.Calderon has staked his reputation on restoring security to Mexico and analysts say he needs to make clear progress to give his conservative National Action Party (PAN) a chance of retaining the presidency when elections are held in July 2012.Calderon is barred by Mexican law from running again.As interior minister, Poire will also play a key role in ensuring the 2012 elections run smoothly. The trained political scientist is an expert on the Mexican electoral process.Latest surveys show Calderon's PAN polling around half as much support nationally as the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The centrist PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years until being ousted in 2000.PLACING BETSPoire, 40, will be Calderon's fifth interior minister. Blake, who died with seven other people in the helicopter, was the second interior minister to die in an aircraft crash.The interior minister was for years viewed as the number two to the president, though Blake, who took the job in July 2010, had a lower profile than many previous incumbents.A loyal supporter of Calderon, Poire steadfastly backed the drug war strategy during some of the conflict's most testing moments as national security spokesman.Jose Luis Pineyro, a security expert at Mexico's Autonomous Metropolitan University, said the appointment of Poire showed Calderon was placing his bets firmly on being able to convince voters his drive against the cartels was paying off."He has no other option. He's failed to live up to the other two major pledges he made as president: generating more jobs and cutting poverty. Poverty has risen," said Pineyro. "Poire will act as a kind of public face (on security)."A Harvard graduate who later worked as an academic, Poire was an adviser to Calderon early in his presidency.Poire blamed lax U.S. gun laws for allowing high-powered weaponry to reach Mexico and arm the cartels. The entry of U.S. arms into Mexico has been a regular bone of contention between Mexico and Washington during Calderon's presidency.Source: [article/2011/11/18/us-mexico-minister-idUSTRE7AH06520111118](Return to Contents)Drug Cartels Recruiting Texas Teens (TX)17 November 2011KFDA TVDrug cartels are seeking younger and younger recruits, and they're finding them all across Texas schools.The Department of Public Safety is alerting parents all across the state regarding the increased presence of drug cartels looking to lure children into transporting narcotics and illegal immigrants across the border.One teen was set to graduate from her Houston high school this past May.The 18-year-old Texas senior had plans to go to college, but that all came to an abrupt end.Her body was found dumped in the back of a pickup truck in Mexico.It's believed the violent drug cartels recruited her to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border."They are recruiting young children, older adults and elderly adults," the Dumas ISD Superintendent said. "It's a scary thought."His district includes students living not only in Dumas, but the small town of Cactus.We're told the area has changed over the years. Some call the City of Cactus, "The Town With No Rules" after a drug related murder went unsolved and just recently, the entire police force quit.The Cactus Police Chief declined to talk with us about the drug problem in his town. We met with him personally two weeks ago, but would only tell us the drug problem is getting better."Once these cartels have their hooks in you, there's no getting out," a State Trooper said.He's well aware of the problem that could easily trickle into our community."The potential is always here because I-40 is a major corridor for drug trafficking," he said.He'll also tell you that drugs in violence go hand-in-hand."There's been instances of kidnappings and teens getting held for ransom down in Mexico so it is very dangerous and it's not a game," he said.….Source: [story/16071455/dru](Return to Contents)Battle for the Border: Spillover Violence Changes the Way Police Work the Street (TX)18 November 2011KRGV TVA 600 pound marijuana bust in San Juan led police to a small home. They were looking for a 17-year-old who lived in the home. They believed he was not only connected to the drugs but police think he's tied to big time organized crime.Police say cartel factions are operating in the Valley."Make sure we take away every opportunity we can from setting up shop in this area. Because we know they're here. We know they've been here," says the San Juan Police Chief.The Chief says he is seeing his worst fears become a reality. A cartel connected kidnapping happened just this week. Two immigrants held for ransom in a home on the north side of town. Six people were arrested.He says it was first seen in May of 2010."We had a murder involving them here in the city of San Juan. We suspected they were going to start trickling down in this area and setting up shop," he says.One man was gunned down in his home during a botched kidnapping. Investigators later linked his killers to the Gulf Cartel.….Source: [news/local/story/Battle-for-the-Border-Spillover-Violence-Changes/IefdfVPVjE2T8QtBHze47g.cspx](Return to Contents)Battle for the Border: Police Trying to Stay Ahead of Cartels (TX)18 November 2011KRGV TVPolice are being forced to shift their tactics to keep up with the changing times. They know street gangs are now tangled up with organized crime.Police in San Juan are identifying the gangs by the way they dress and symbols they wear. They say gang members are getting recruited to do street-level jobs for Mexican drug cartels. Gang members are muscle for hire. They'll do anything to tap into the cartel's dirty dollars, including kidnappings, home invasions and murders."A lot of money is going south into Mexico, and everybody wants a part of that. And street gangs also want a part of that," says the San Juan Police Chief.He adds having locals helps the cartels."They know the geographical area and they study as much as we study them. They have counter-surveillance. They have individuals specifically targeting our communication systems," he explains.Everything from clothes and symbols to tattoos are logged and categorized as markers for gang members. It's a new way for authorities to fight Mexican cartels setting up shop on Valley streets.Source: [news/local/story/Battle-for-the-Border-Police-Trying-to-Stay-Ahead/fa3nciSYXEmm1j_VxEMHDQ.cspx](Return to Contents)Entire Police Department Arrested in Mexico (SIN)18 November 2011The New AmericanEditorial Comment: This is an update to a previously-reported storyWhen the police department from the municipality of Ahome in the Mexican state of Sinaloa was summoned to meet with the director of state police, they thought they were going to discuss routine operations. Instead, they were disarmed and the 32 officers and commanders who make up the entire department were arrested for their connection with Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva cartels.According to a story at , the recent arrests came about because of information gained from a Beltran Leyva leader arrested in May:After his arrest in May of this year Geovanny Lizárraga Ontiveros, a northern Sinaloa Beltran Leyva leader, confessed that he and Isidro Meza "el Chapo Isidro" had the Ahome police force on their payroll.In a news conference to announce the arrests, Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez explained that "In Ahome there are signs that the police are committing crimes, so the 32 officers and commanders were arrested with the assistance of federal authorities."This municipality and the municipalities of Culiacan, Mazatlan and Navolato are where most of the more than 1,800 homicides in the state in 2011, including more than 80 police officers, are concentrated.It should also be mentioned that the Sinaloa cartel is widely believed to have deeply infiltrated the command structure of the state police forces in Sinaloa.Police corruption is nothing new, but the extent of alleged criminality within the police department in Ahome is remarkable. However, the comments of Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez in the aftermath of the arrests do little to allay concerns regarding the extent of police corruption within Sinaloa — and throughout Mexico. A November 15 article for Fox News Latino conveys both the governor’s commitment to root out corruption — and the hint that further mass arrests of police officers may be seen in the near future:"Regrettably, after we had set a goal of reducing crime in the municipality of Ahome ... there are signs of criminality by the police themselves," López Valdez said, vowing not to relent in the battle against criminals, especially "those who wear a uniform."Though individual officers have been fired on suspicion of colluding with drug dealers, Monday's sweep against the Ahome police department was the first large-scale operation against corrupt cops in Sinaloa.The state government stands ready to carry out further police purges if needed, the governor said.As reported a year ago for The New American, less than two percent of the crimes committed in Mexico are every punished by that nation’s justice system. When entire police departments are allegedly so corrupt that every single officer is arrested for being on the payroll of one of the drug cartels, it is little wonder that so few crimes are ever punished in the Mexican courts. Given such an absurdly low rate of effective prosecutions for criminal acts, it is not surprising that crime — and violent crime, in particular — is simply out of control in many areas of Mexico.The ongoing conflict between the Mexican government and the numerous drug cartels has led to a steady, northward advance of the crime and violence from south of the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas and the American Southwest. Just last month, Reuters reported that Los Zetas and other cartels are recruiting American children as young as 11 years of age to carry out crimes, including transportation of large quantities of drugs.….Source: [world-mainmenu-26/north-america-mainmenu-36/9827-entire-police-department-arrested-in-mexico](Return to Contents)Shootout Simulation Held at Mexico School (CHIH)18 November 2011Fox News (EFE)About a thousand students and teachers participated in a gangland gun battle simulation at a school in this violent Mexican border city, officials said.A dozen individuals in the role of cartel hit men staged the fake shootout Thursday at the Cbtis 114 high school while teachers and students - following safety protocols instituted last week by the city's municipal police force - took cover under desks and tables inside the classrooms.The goal of the exercise was to reinforce instruction imparted last week during police safety seminars.Those sessions are being offered by the Juarez police force's Group 16, responsible for establishing the safety protocols for schools throughout Chihuahua state and at all levels, from kindergarten to high school, police spokesman Adrian Sanchez told Efe.The safety instruction is a response to gun battles pitting drug cartel hit men against one another or members of the security forces, some of which have taken place near or on schools' premises during class hours.On Aug. 24, assailants fired gunshots at a group of parents waiting to pick up their children outside an elementary school in Ciudad Juarez, killing one person and wounding four women.Ciudad Juarez, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, has been plagued by a wave of drug-related violence in recent years blamed on a war for control of smuggling routes into the United States being waged by the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels with backing from hit men from local street gangs.Source: [latino.latino/news/2011/11/18/shootout-simulation-held-at-mexico-school/](Return to Contents)Covering Cartels Is Risky Business, Says Mexican Journalist (SIN)18 November 2011The Talk Radio News ServiceThe Committee to Protect Journalists will award Mexican journalist Javier Arturo Valdez Cardenas next week with the International Press Freedom Award for his work reporting on Mexico’s dangerous drug cartels.Valdez Cardenas will be honored for his contributions to Riodoce, a weekly publication covering crime and corruption in Sinaloa, Mexico, one of the states that has been most affected by the escalating drug war.Valdez Cardenas and fellow journalist Dolia Estevez participated in a discussion Friday in Washington, D.C., at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute entitled, “Reporting on Crime and Violence in Mexico.” The duo shared a daunting account of what it’s like to be a journalist amidst constant violence and eternal threat.“The narco commands the news,” Valdez Cardenas said. “When I’m writing, I’m not thinking about my wife, my kids, the editor, the director, the reader. I’m writing and I’m thinking about the narco as if he was behind me watching as I write, and I think ‘Will he like it? Will he get pissed off and send me a bouquet of grenades?’…You don’t have to be under direct threat, you assume you’re under threat, reality is a threat…There’s a guy always pointing a firearm at you…following you…with his finger on the trigger waiting for you to cross the line to pull it.”46 journalists have died since the administration under former Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in 2006, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The question then is why pursue journalism? And why narco journalism?Valdez Cardenas said there is no avoiding the narco in regions like Sinaloa.“In these regions every path leads to the narco,” Valdez Cardenas said. “You could report on soccer, but the narco is there, or agricultural workers, but the owners of the lands are funded with narco money, the car dealerships are owned by narcos…the options are to write about the narco or stay quiet and play dumb.”“I think we need to assume the responsibility put upon us,” Valdez Cardenas added. “It’s not that one decides to write about the narco, you either do it or you retire…It’s not something you plan to do, but the reality is there and it slaps you in the face and you have to learn to report it…You have to know how to publish the information, how to manage it, but not remain silent. I think silence is an act of complicity and death, and I don’t want to be an accomplice.”….Source: [news/2011/11/18/covering-cartels-is-risky-business-says-mexican-journalist.html](Return to Contents)Official: Drug Cartel Tried To Skew Mexico Vote (MICH)18 November 2011Google (AP)A Mexican official said Friday that drug traffickers tried to influence elections in the western state of Michoacan, a charge already made before the voting by some of the candidates and party leaders.Juan Marcos Gutierrez, the outgoing acting interior secretary, said a drug cartel conducted "boldfaced interference" in last Sunday's state elections. Though he did not name the gang, a single cartel, The Knights Templar, dominates most of Michoacan."We cannot allow this participation by organized crime to even start trying to influence (election) results," he said. "We have the obligation to bulletproof ourselves against this kind of bold-faced interference."Gutierrez said traffickers tried to intimidate voters to cast ballots a certain way. He also referred to a local newspaper in a city whose mayor was shot to death shortly before the elections being forced to run an ad that threatened to kill anyone who voted for the mayor's party.The mayor, like President Felipe Calderon, is a member of the conservative National Action Party. Calderon's sister ran for governor in the Michoacan elections, but lost narrowly to the candidate of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.Gutierrez called the threats and pressure used by traffickers "extremely worrisome."Gutierrez served about a week as interim interior secretary, before handing over the post to Alejandro Poire on Thursday. In Mexico, the interior department oversees domestic security and political negotiations with congress and also helps organize elections.In a speech upon taking office, Poire said, "We will not permit criminals of any kind to interfere with our right to freely elect our representatives."Also Friday, the Mexican army said it had seized a $350,000 radio communications network that was purportedly operated by the Zetas drug cartel in the northern state of Coahuila. The Defense Department said the system consisted of 122 radio sets, mostly hand-held, and was used by the Zetas to conduct internal communications and monitor law enforcement agencies.The Mexican navy reported it had detained 14 alleged Zetas members in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, where drug gang violence has worsened in recent months. The navy said the 14 were stopped late Wednesday in suspicious vehicles along a road.The Veracruz state government reported that four people were killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers near the state capital. The statement did not say which law enforcement agency was involved or whether those killed in the confrontation belonged to any drug gang.Source: [hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iwOuYWxbkkgStbZKXPExEvA21Z4g?docId=7ef6012fe06b48ada0ab39cb1444e5d6](Return to Contents)Cartel Castles in Mexico Evidence of Drug Money (SON)18 November 2011KPHO TVThey stand out as much for their opulence as they do for the sheer fact that they are mansions in a border town where the typical home is little more than a cement block.But many of the homes located in this neighborhood, located about three miles south of the border, also show signs of something more sinister. They have walls that stretch as high as 30 feet, with barbed wire on the top. One even sports a guard tower.Law enforcement agents said there's really only one way border families get the money to build mansions like these - the drug trade."Even if you were one of the richest, wealthiest tomato growers in the area, you couldn't build a house like this," said a retired D.E.A. agent.The agent said the Sinaloa drug cartel controls the smuggling corridor that includes Nogales. That means if these homes were built with drug money, the owners have connections to the cartel."It's all the result of the ill-gotten proceeds from the Sinaloa cartel," he said.The neighborhood was long known as the home of many prominent Sonora families, but over the past five to ten years, many of the old families have moved out as people connected to the drug trade paid cash for the lots.Many of the old homes were leveled and replaced by opulent mansions with pillars, cast iron gates and the tell-tale walls that could protect the residents from rival drug gangs.Source: [story/16078771/cartel-castles-in-mexico-evidence-of-drug-money](Return to Contents)Mexican Marines Nab 14 Members of Zetas Cartel (VER)19 November 2011Fox News (EFE)Mexican marines captured 14 Los Zetas drug cartel employees in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, the navy said Friday.The suspects were arrested Wednesday in the municipality of Fortin de las Flores after a marine patrol spotted four vehicles sitting parked with their headlights on, the navy said in a statement.Noting that one of the vehicles had no license plate, the marines carried out an inspection of all four and found guns, ammunition and drugs."Without any coercion," the four women and 10 men inside the vehicles told the marines they worked for the Zetas "as lookouts, money-collectors, shift bosses," the navy said.The marines seized a handgun, a grenade, nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition and communications gear, as well as cocaine and marijuana packaged for retail sale.Veracruz, a corridor for both undocumented migrants and illegal drugs bound for the United States, has been the scene in recent months of gruesome massacres amid an intensifying turf struggle between Los Zetas and the Gulf drug cartel.Additional federal police and military personnel were deployed in the state last month as part of a crime-suppression operation dubbed "Safe Veracruz."News of the arrests in Veracruz followed an announcement that army troops captured a suspected Los Zetas boss in north-central Mexico.In a joint statement Thursday, the Defense Secretariat and the federal Attorney General's Office said Alfredo Aleman Narvaez, the purported Zetas chief in the central state of San Luis Potosi, was captured two days prior in Fresnillo, Zacatecas.A combined air and ground operation during a horse race organized by Aleman Narvaez led to the capture of the suspected drug boss, accused of coordinating marijuana distribution in Mexico and the United States and other criminal activities.Source: [latino.latino/news/2011/11/19/mexican-marines-nab-14-members-zetas-cartel/](Return to Contents)Former Mexico Cartel Leader's Nephew Indicted in Texas (TX/TAMPS)18 November 2011ReutersA federal grand jury in Texas charged a powerful former cartel chief's nephew on Friday in a drug and money laundering conspiracy that stretched across the United States.Rafael Cardenas Vela, 38, was arrested last month in South Texas, and has been held without bond. He is the nephew of Osiel Cardenas, the former leader of the brutal Gulf cartel, who was extradited to the United States in 2007 and is currently serving a 25-year sentence.The indictment said Cardenas Vela has been an active player in the cartel since 2000, when he first assumed control of operations in San Fernando, in Tamaulipas state in northeast Mexico.Since March, he has acted as chief of the cartel's hometown of Matamoros, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, where he helped manage a distribution network that pushed narcotics to cities in the northern United States and returned the proceeds to Mexico, the indictment said.Cardenas Vela was accused of having taken control of the gritty border city after a power struggle broke out in the cartel's ranks following the November 2010 slaying of another uncle, Antonio Cardenas Guillen, also known as "Tony the Storm."U.S. and Mexican authorities are cooperating closely to clamp down on drug trafficking and cross-border crime from Mexico, where more than 44,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon took office five years ago and sent the military to crush the drug cartels.The indictment said Cardenas Vela used drug trafficking proceeds to bribe Mexican police officers and purchase bulletproof vehicles, firearms, grenades and homemade cannons used by the Gulf cartel in its fight against the Zetas.U.S. federal authorities have also moved to seize $20 million in cash and two houses linked to Cardenas Vela in South Texas. He faces 10 years to life in prison if convicted of the drug conspiracy and up to $10 million in fines.Source: [article/2011/11/19/us-usa-mexico-drugs-idUSTRE7AI02W20111119](Return to Contents)Two Arrested, $1.8 Million Worth of Cocaine Seized in Colton, CA (CA)18 November 2011The Daily BulletinCocaine valued at $1.8 million was seized from a Mexican cartel and two men were arrested when state agents and police busted a pre-arranged drug sale Thursday in a Colton hotel parking lot.The arrests and seizure of 18.5 kilos of cocaine were part of a California Department of Justice operation that targeted the Sinaloa cartel based in Baja California, which distributes cocaine throughout Southern California, according to a DOJ statement.Working with a confidential informant, an undercover agent arranged to purchase cocaine from a person associated with the cartel. At the pre-arranged meeting Thursday in Colton, agents arrested Juan M. Flores, 40, of Tecate, Mexico and a 47-year-old man from Whittier.Both men were booked into jail in Riverside County and are being held in lieu of $1 million bail each."This operation is an example of the complex and multi-jurisdictional work that Department of Justice agents do every day to keep California safe," the Attorney General said in the statement. "I commend these agents for their bravery and professional excellence."Special agents with the state Inland Crackdown Allied Task Force conducted the undercover sting operation into the drug trafficking activities of the cartel.The operation is the latest in a series of DOJ-led operations targeting transnational gangs across California, which included the seizure of 18 kilos of cocaine from a vehicle that crossed the border at the Calexico port of entry in July. In August, the DOJ dismantled a large-scale U.S.-Mexico prescription drug trafficking operation.INCA is one of 52 state DOJ-led task forces that coordinate the response to gang and drug trafficking. It's composed of personnel from: Beaumont Police Department, California Alcohol Beverage and Control, California Highway Patrol, Corona Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Murrieta Police Department, Riverside County District Attorney's Office, Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Riverside Police Department and the San Bernardino Police Department.Source: [ci_19369144](Return to Contents)Bill Would Fight Drug Smugglers Using Ultralight Aircraft (DC)18 November 2011KRWG TVTwo U.S. Senators today introduced a bipartisan amendment to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act to help improve border security by cracking down on smugglers who use ultralight aircraft to bring drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.Their amendment is identical to legislation the Senators introduced earlier this year.The same bill passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. House last Congress after being introduced by a Democratic Assemblywoman from Arizona (D-AZ-08), who has long fought for increased security along the southwest border. Every year, hundreds of ultralight aircraft (ULAs) are flown across the southern border and can carry several hundred pounds of narcotics. ULAs are small, single-seat aircraft that are favored by smugglers because they are inexpensive, relatively quiet and can fly at night without lights. They are often able to evade radar detection and can drop a load of narcotics in the U.S. and return to Mexico without ever landing in this country. "This amendment would give law enforcement a stronger enforcement tool to punish drug traffickers and keep our borders secure. Without equal penalties for all types of transportation smuggling our law enforcement officials are essentially fighting with one hand tied behind their backs," said one Senator, a member of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control."Due to a loophole in current law, drug smugglers who use ultralights receive a lesser penalty than those who use airplanes or cars. This amendment will provide law enforcement the tools it needs to prosecute drug smugglers to the fullest extent of the law. I am pleased to join my colleagues in this bipartisan effort to crack down on these illegal activities," said the other Senator."Ultralight aircraft are increasingly being used to smuggle drugs into our country. This amendment ensures that the penalties for those caught using this form of trafficking are as stiff as those for smugglers bringing drugs into the country by plane," another Arizona Congressman said.This amendment would:Give law enforcement agencies additional tools to combat this type of drug trafficking by closing a loophole in current law that allows smugglers who use ULAs to receive a lesser penalty than those who use airplanes or cars.Establish the same penalties for trafficking, whether by plane, automobile or ULA - up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.Add an attempt and conspiracy provision to the aviation smuggling law to allow prosecutors to charge people other than the pilot who are involved in aviation smuggling.Direct the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security to collaborate in identifying equipment and technology used by DOD that could be used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to detect ULAsUnder existing law, ULAs are not categorized as aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration, which means they do not fall under the aviation smuggling provisions of the Tariff Act of 1930.Recent news reports have shown that Mexican organized crime groups are increasingly using ULAs to drop marijuana bundles in agricultural fields and desert scrub across the U.S. border. The Los Angeles Times reported in May that the number of incursions by ultralights reached 228 in the last federal fiscal year, almost double from the previous year. In August an ultralight vehicle crashed in the boot heel of New Mexico carrying 134 pounds of marijuana.Source: [krwg/news/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1877064/Regional/Udall.Bill.Would.Fight.Drug.Smugglers.Using.Ultralight.Aircraft](Return to Contents)Did Agents in Texas Let Guns 'Walk' into Mexico? (TX)19 November 2011Houston ChronicleA man was just 22 in October 2010 when he purchased a Romanian-made Draco AK-47 pistol in Joshua, just outside Fort Worth.There was nothing remarkable about the sale until the gun, with its serial number obliterated, was identified as one of three weapons used to kill an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent on a Mexico highway four months later.Documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle show that at different points in 2010, two Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms divisions - Dallas and Phoenix - had evidence implicating the man well before drug gangsters gunned down the agent and his partner, who survived.But no one put it all together until agents in Dallas arrested the man in February, 13 days after the agent’s death and four months after the man purchased the deadly Draco.Now the case of that man, as well as his ex-Marine brother, and their next-door neighbor in the Dallas suburb of Lancaster is exhibit A in an effort by congressional Republicans to uncover a Texas version of the flawed tactics used in the Phoenix-based Operation Fast and Furious.Phoenix operationA Texas Senator has demanded answers from the Attorney General on whether ATF agents in Texas - akin to the botched Operation Fast and Furious in Arizona - allowed such guns to "walk" into Mexico in an effort to track them, rather than intercepting them and arresting the purchasers."The attorney general has taken every opportunity to sidestep and stonewall, and until he reassures Texans that gun-walking never occurred in our state, I will continue to press him for answers," the Senator said.As part of Fast and Furious, ATF agents in Phoenix were instructed to track weapons purchases as they moved up the chain to Mexican drug cartels. But they lost sight of 1,400 guns that ended up in Mexico, two of which were found at the murder scene of a Border Patrol agent in Arizona in December.The Senator and others say they're especially concerned because the Texas case also involved a gun used in the murder of a U.S. law enforcement agent.Dallas office's recordsATF officials in Dallas remain adamant that there was no Fast and Furious in Texas."This case has nothing to do with Fast and Furious," said a spokesman for ATF in Dallas. "There hasn't been any gun-walking in the Dallas division of ATF."The records reviewed by the Chronicle, some of them obtained from an Iowa Republican Senator, who along with a Republican Congressman of California is probing the Fast and Furious debacle - suggest the ICE agent’s murder gun case instead may have been an instance of missed opportunities, intelligence-sharing failures and the inability to connect the dots and make arrests before the weapon was ever purchased in October 2010.The Texas suspects first showed up on ATF's radar in August and September of that year when the Dallas division received records of their purchases, known as "multiple sales summaries," of the Dracos and other pistols in the Dallas area.Tracing load of weaponsSuch reports flood ATF offices and by themselves are not normally cause for suspicion, ATF officials have said.The trio next appeared on Sept. 17, 2011, the day the agency's National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W.Va., completed traces on a load of 23 guns seized in a traffic stop in La Pryor, Texas, 46 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The load, records show, actually had been flagged down in La Pryor more than a month earlier on Aug. 7. But the serial numbers had been obliterated. It took ATF technicians until mid-September to restore plicating the puzzle was the fact that the trace requests came not from the Dallas ATF, but the Las Cruces, N.M., office, where agents were investigating a family involved in smuggling guns to Mexico.When the trace results were available, the reports were not sent to Dallas but to the Phoenix ATF office, which oversees Las Cruces.A federal law enforcement source said the results trickled in to the Dallas office between Sept. 17 and Oct. 28, 2010.ATF traced the sales to 10 people in the Dallas area, but did not zero in on the Texas suspects. Instead, they had their sights on another buyer.Only later did agents determine that buyer also was linked to the Texans, the source said.Nevertheless, the source insisted: "We didn't ignore (them). We looked into everybody.''….Source: [news/houston-texas/article/Did-Texas-let-guns-walk-into-Mexico-2278436.php](Return to Contents)Summary of Events19 November 2011Blog del Narco/NAFBPO**An asterisk denotes death involving a police officer or a member of the military serving in that capacity.MONTERREY, NUEVO LE?N*A municipal police officer, Ariel Corpus Prado, 47 years old, was executed while on patrol. His partner was not injured. They had observed a subject acting suspiciously, and on approaching him, they came under attack.C?RDOBA, VERACRUZThe general manager of the newspaper El Buen Tono here has asked the Attorney General to disseminate photos from security tapes when their newspaper offices were attacked and burned. He complains of lack of action by state authorities and a possible cover up, and is asking the investigation be turned over to federal investigators. A week after the fire, the newspapers website was attacked. Many of the employees have resigned out of fear.MEXICO CITY, DISTRITO FEDERALThe Mexican Army has announced the arrest of Alfredo Alemán Narváez,known as “El Comandante Alemán”, who was responsible for activities of the Los Zetas in San Luis Potosí. No further information was in the report.LA CHICAYOTA, SINALOAMilitary personnel located a clandestine drug lab on Thursday 11/17, and dismantled it. Seized was:746 kilograms of methamphetamine and 953 liters of the same drug.175 kilograms of tartaric acid.325 kilograms of caustic soda.150 liters of toluene.150 liters of hydrochloric acid.100 liters of acetone.340 liters of unknown substances.Five reactors for the synthesis.Various materials for the development of such drugs.CIUDAD JU?REZ, CHIHUAHUAOn Thursday afternoon, a group of gunmen shot and killed 3 men in a car at the entrance to an elementary school. It is unknown if there were students present at the school at the time.SONOYTA, SONORAThe Mexican military on Thursday 11/17 found an abandoned truck near here with 12 tons of marijuana worth about US$18 million. It appeared the truck was abandoned due to military checkpoints.SAN BLAS, SINALOA*Thursday afternoon, the municipal police commander of this village was shot and killed. A passerby in another vehicle was wounded. The report says this brings to 81 the total officers at various levels that have been killed this year.XALISCO, NAYARIT*The director of the state investigation agency, or AEI, was attacked late Thursday. Guillermo Romero Robles had received a summons to respond and did so with his bodyguards. He was reported to be uninjured, but one bodyguard was killed and several others wounded.Source: [](Return to Contents)Cell Phones Aid in Border Smuggling (CA)17 November 2011San Francisco Chronicle (AP)Eight men have been charged in an unusual sting that investigators say highlights a new tactic in which immigrant smugglers never cross the border from Mexico — and instead use cell phones from nearby mountaintops to bark out real-time instructions to their customers as they navigate each step of the desert trek into the U.S.The defendants were part of one of the first immigrant smuggling rings dismantled on the U.S.-Mexico border that exclusively uses cell phones, employing none of the foot guides commonly employed to lead groups across the border, said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's special agent in charge of investigations in San Diego. The arrests took place Tuesday and Wednesday in the Los Angeles area.As a general rule, smugglers still employ foot guides but cell phones are turning up more frequently in areas where Mexican mountaintops afford sweeping views into the United States. Scouts keep customers on well-traveled paths and away from Border Patrol agents.U.S. authorities say they have spotted these new coyotes more often in the last year or so as cell-phone coverage expands to the country's most forgotten parts and handsets below $50 have become widely available."Technology is now the guide, as opposed to an individual that's going to have to try to make it back to Mexico when the Border Patrol stops them," a Border Patrol Chief said in an interview.As U.S. authorities try to get a handle on how commonly phones are used and which smuggling rings embrace them, they face new challenges. They can no longer pump foot guides for valuable information, like where they walk, where they hide, how they spot Border Patrol agents and who they work for in Mexico.It is also more difficult to prosecute smuggling charges because the guides are safely out of reach, south of the border.The probe culminating in the federal complaint unsealed Wednesday began in Jacumba, a hardscrabble hamlet of about 500 people built around a three-block main street of abandoned businesses, a general store and an old motel. The town about 75 miles east of San Diego became a popular corridor for illegal crossings after a 1990s crackdown in border cities pushed migrants to remote areas.Until the 2001 terror attacks, residents could easily walk across the border from Jacume, a poor Mexican town of around the same size. A fence of closely-spaced bollards erected a few years ago made crossing illegally more difficult, but migrants use ladders, even in daylight.In April 2010, the Border Patrol began noticing drivers in rented cars taking migrants from Jacumba (pronounced hah-KOOM-bah) to the Los Angeles area. They concluded mountaintop scouts in Mexico were guiding customers to a white farmhouse on Jacumba's outskirts to wait for drivers, aided by binoculars and phones.From barren mountaintops, scouts can see several miles and monitor every step. It is only about 300 yards from a border fence to the well-kept sprawl of barns and silos. Scouts utter commands on a walk that takes only minutes, compared to three or four days sometimes needed for migrants to reach Interstate 8 in parts of California."They say run, sit down, hide in that bush, avoid those rocks," said the ICE assistant special in charge of investigations in San Diego.Drivers who were arrested and prosecuted led ICE and Border Patrol investigators to cousins in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Ana who were suspected of contracting with Mexican smugglers to pick up the migrants once they entered the United States. They identified them as longtime illegal immigrants from the Mexican state of Michoacán and targeted the extended family for immigration violations in Southern California.Investigators say the cousins have employed legions of drivers — dozens, at least — to navigate California highways. Their recruiting grounds included nightclubs in Santa Ana and Long Beach.Drivers were high school students, housewives and various down-on-their-luck Americans. The main job qualification was U.S. citizenship or legal residency, an effort to draw less scrutiny at Border Patrol highway checkpoints.Cell phones spared smugglers the expense of paying a foot guide about $50 for each migrant they lead across, investigators said.Migrants paid $5,000 to cross, on the high end of a typical fee for being led through California mountains. The costs are small — $100 to $300 for the American driver, $25 to $200 a day for the operator of a California holding house, plus rental cars and phones. Smuggling organizations — one based in Southern California and the other Mexico — split the rest.Foot guides are also being replaced by phones in other remote border regions, including the Arizona desert and California's Imperial Valley, where Mexico's Mount Signal gives commanding views, Border Patrol officials say. Cell phone coyotes have also positioned themselves on U.S. soil.Expanding phone coverage carries consequences not only for smugglers. Border Patrol agents can now communicate with each other more easily. Humanitarian groups hoping to lower the toll of migrants who die each year crossing the border have advocated forcefully for more coverage, saying it offers a lifeline to call 911 for help.Investigators estimate the Jacumba smuggling ring was crossing about 10 people a week, a fairly small operation that reflects a steep drop in illegal crossings from Mexico. Border Patrol apprehensions plunged by more than half since 2005 to the lowest level in decades.The smugglers based in Mexico remain elusive.Source: [cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/11/17/national/a134606S29.DTL](Return to Contents)Teen Arrested Trying To Smuggle Ammunition into Mexico (AZ)16 November 2011Yuma SunU.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working the Port of Entry in San Luis arrested a Mexican teen Tuesday for attempting to smuggle more than 2,500 rounds of AK-47 ammunition into Mexico.A CBP spokesman said officers referred an 18-year-old male from San Luis, Sonora, for a secondary inspection of his Ford after he gave contradictory answers to routine questions asked by officers to people entering Mexico.The officer said when officers searched the trunk of the vehicle, they located two containers filled with 2,520 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition.“It was a significant seizure, especially considering the amount and the caliber of weapon it was for,” the officer said.He added that in an unrelated incident, CBP officers also arrested a 19-year-old teen at the Douglas Port of Entry on the same day, for also trying to smuggle ammunition into Mexico.The officer said the ammo and vehicle from the San Luis Port arrest were both seized, and the teen was arrested and turned over to the Immigration and Custom Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.Source: [news/officers-74565-leon-teen.html](Return to Contents)Human-Smuggling Boat Stopped off Seal Beach (CA)17 November 2011Los Angeles TimesAuthorities have intercepted a boat in Seal Beach that was allegedly being used to smuggle people into the United States.A crew at the Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach stopped the 24-foot Bayliner about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday as it entered a restricted area at the harbor, said a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego.The Orange County Sheriff's Department's Harbor Patrol responded and detained the boat's 10 occupants --the captain, who is a U.S. citizen, and one female and eight male Mexican nationals. The Sheriff's Department then alerted the Border Patrol.Agents arrested the boat captain, a 46-year-old man whose name was not released, on suspicion of alien smuggling, Jimenez said. The occupants of the boat were detained.The operation was a joint operation by local and federal agencies participating in the Central California Maritime Agency Coordination Group, a newly created multiagency effort to crack down on smuggling.Source: [latimesblogs.lanow/2011/11/smuggling-arrest.html](Return to Contents) 19-Year-Old Arrested Trying To Smuggle Sniper-Style Rifle out of US (AZ)17 November 2011KPHO TVA 19-year-old accused of smuggling an AR-15 sniper-style rifle out of the U.S. has been arrested at the Douglas Port.U.S. Custom and Border Protection said when officers searched the man's truck they found the weapon broken down and hidden in various spots throughout the vehicle.He was taken into custody and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.Source: [story/16066702/19-year-old-arrested-trying-to-smuggle-sniper-style-rifle-out-of-us?Call=Email&Format=HTML](Return to Contents)Matamoros Man Sentenced in Immigrant Smuggling Ring (TX)15 November 2011The Brownsville HeraldA 21-year-old Matamoros man accused of smuggling multiple undocumented immigrants to a Brownsville stash house, and in one instance raping a female immigrant, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, a U.S. Attorney announced today.Rogelio Serrano-Lara pleaded guilty on June 9 to transporting an alien within the United States, according to a press release from the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Texas.The U.S. attorney's office says a U.S. District Judge went beyond the maximum sentence of 37 months for Serrano-Lara on Monday after a 29-year-old woman from El Salvador testified that Serrano-Lara raped her in a Brownsville stash house.The woman testified that she was raped after Serrano-Lara threatened to rape her 13-year-old daughter.According to the criminal complaint against Serrano-Lara, the human smuggling ring ran from Brownsville to Mission.Serrano-Lara was arrested on May 10, while days earlier a federal agent found a total of 12 undocumented immigrants in Brownsville.Source: [news/attorney-133708-states-immigrant.html](Return to Contents)Prosecutor: Third Man Missing Along with Mexican Newspaper Workers (MEX)17 November 2011Latin American Herald TribuneThree people went missing earlier this week in central Mexico, two of whom work for Mexico City-based business daily El Financiero, the Zacatecas state attorney general said Thursday.Arturo Nahle told MVS radio that a search for the men was being conducted in Zacatecas, where they allegedly went missing on a highway on Monday, as well as in the neighboring states of Aguascalientes and Jalisco.The main line of investigation relates to the fact the two newspaper workers – Oswaldo Garcia I?iguez and Jose de Jesus Ortiz Parra – went to Zacatecas get a friend, identified as Filiberto Munguia Bravo, out of jail.They did so of their own accord as part of “activities entirely unrelated” to their newspaper circulation and delivery duties for El Financiero, the AG said.He said Munguia Bravo, who is allegedly linked to the Gulf drug cartel, was caught red-handed on Nov. 6 in possession of ammunition and jailed until Monday, when he was released after one of the newspaper workers posted his bond.Garcia later spoke with his wife and provided her the last known information about their situation, telling her the three were being followed by two police patrol cars and giving her the license plate numbers.Those numbers were then traced to two Zacatecas city police patrol cars, according to Nahle, who said the four officers have vehemently denied any involvement in the men’s disappearance.The state prosecutor said that thus far no legal action has been taken against the police officers, although they could be placed under investigation shortly.On Wednesday, El Financiero called on Zacatecas authorities to clear up the disappearance of its two employees.The newspaper urged state and federal authorities to “strictly adhere to investigation protocols” because different versions of the events have been divulged “in reckless fashion, without corroborating the information.”The daily noted that authorities had initially denied that the two police cars had been following the victims prior to their disappearance but then later acknowledged that version of the events to be accurate.El Financiero demanded the investigation be conducted in strict compliance with legal norms and warned that laws must not be “bent” to solve the case quickly.It added that it will carefully monitor the results of the probe to ensure all lines of investigation are followed and that authorities get to the bottom of what happened.While it remains unclear whether the men’s disappearance is related to the fact Garcia and Ortiz were employed by a news organization, violence against members of the media is a serious problem in Mexico.Source: [article.asp?CategoryId=14091&ArticleId=445474](Return to Contents)Report Shows Cross Border Violence Threat Low (TX)17 November 2011WOAI RadioDespite concerns about cross border violence, a new 'threat assessment' from the U.S. Coast Guard says the threat level along the Rio Grande is 'low,' 1200 WOAI news reports. The Coast Guard is responsible for patrolling the Rio Grande, and it says the Mexican drug trafficking gangs present only a moderate risk of violence. The Congressman who represents a large portion of the Texas-Mexico border says he is tired of the rest of the country getting the impression that the Texas side of the border is rampant with violent crime. "We gotta keep working to make sure the violence does come across the river, along the border, and up to San Antonio," he said. "But at the same time, let's call it the way it is." Two incidents last month, including the shooting of a Hidalgo County deputy who pulled over a car being driven by a drug gang members, highlighted the concerns about cross border violence, as did a state report released in September warning that Mexican drug gangs were trying to create a 100 mile wide 'safe zone' inside Texas. "The murder rate in Washington DC where I am at right now is ten times more than the murder rate in some of those border towns," the Congressman said. He says the report shows that the efforts being made now along the border are working, and the U.S. must redouble its efforts to fight drug and cross border gang violence, to make sure the crime rate does not increase.Source: [radio.pages/localnews.html?feed=119078&article=9407430](Return to Contents)Seven Charged with Kidnapping in San Juan (TX)20 November 2011The Brownsville HeraldEditorial Comment: This is an update to a previously-reported storyChains rattled as four men and seven women all shackled together shuffled into a courtroom to stand before a municipal judge and face formal charges in connection with the kidnapping of two undocumented immigrants.The group went before a San Juan Municipal Judge, who formally charged all seven with two counts of aggravated kidnapping and set their total bonds at $500,000 each before sending them to the Hidalgo County Jail.According to the Police Chief, the group held a man and a woman in their 20s at a house in McAllen and was extorting money from the victims’ family. The victims had been smuggled from Mexico approximately three weeks ago.Through their investigation, San Juan investigators learned that the group is just one cell that responds to an organized crime group in Mexico who had ordered them to carry out the kidnappings.Their job was to hold people against their will and extort as much money as they could from potential victims and their relatives, the chief said.The families of the two victims reportedly paid the kidnappers more than $4,000, but investigators recovered $3,400 from one of the suspects.Police believe there may be more victims throughout the Rio Grande Valley and are continuing their investigation.Police rescued the couple in an operation that began late Wednesday and concluded early Thursday morning with a raid at a house on the 2000 block of West Ebony Street in McAllen.During the raid, two men barricaded themselves in the attic, forcing authorities to use less-than-lethal chemicals to force the men to come out and surrender.During the operation San Juan Police had help from McAllen Police, Texas Rangers and the FBI. The case was referred by Pharr police after one of the victims was able to contact an off-duty police officer.Source: [news/seven-133934-charged-juan.html](Return to Contents)Houston Muslims Question FBI Terror Tactics (TX)20 November 2011Houston ChronicleThe Texan convicted last week of attempting to aid al-Qaida was not on any most-wanted lists and was not in possession of bomb-making materials. He was by no means a major player in global terrorism.But the Muslim man from Hempstead was a threat, FBI agents said. So they tracked him for two years, using cameras, recording devices, an informant and even a plane.Several agents and agencies were involved in the investigation of the suspect before he was arrested for trying to leave the country through the Port of Houston with GPS devices and other materials.Officials said he planned to give them to al-Qaida.That vast investigative effort worried some Muslims in the Houston community, where views on the FBI's role in monitoring and tracking suspects have led to tensions over recent cases.Some have argued that the agency's use of informants who befriend and observe suspects could lead to entrapment, with the informants potentially leading otherwise peaceful youths toward illegal acts.Others have called into question the strong bonds between some Muslim leaders and the FBI, citing concerns over a discontinued agency training session that said Muslims were likely to support violent extremism.While Muslims have repeatedly condemned acts of terror and have shown support for efforts to prevent violence, the FBI's tactics as it aggressively pursues targets that appear to be minor has inspired confusion and concern about the agency's goals, said the executive director of the Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations."My concern is the effect that it's had on the community, how it's divided the community," he said. "There are real nebulous terms as to how they define who is a problem and who isn't. It's not healthy. The community doesn't have the trust in it."FBI representatives said that the agency targets all threats, regardless of a suspect's background."We have to mitigate everything just so that we don't have another 9/11, so that we don't have another Oklahoma City," said the assistant special agent in charge of Houston FBI's counterterrorism program."That's what the taxpayer expects, and that's to protect every sector of society," he said.But the use of informants can be troubling and should raise questions among leaders in the community who are connected with the FBI, said an attorney and member of the Muslim Lawyers Association."Would the same thing have happened if the FBI informant was not present?" he said.….Source: [news/houston-texas/article/Houston-Muslims-question-FBI-terror-tactics-2278024.php](Return to Contents)Cartel Activity Likely To Rise in New Mexico (NM)22 November 2011The Daily TimesMexican drug cartels are operating at increased levels within San Juan County, and they steadily are becoming more violent, according to the Region II Narcotics Task Force Director.Speaking to the Bloomfield City Council on Tuesday, he outlined recent trends within the cartels and warned that unless aggressive measures such as securing a federal magistrate in the area are taken, the picture looks bleak for stemming drug-related crime and violence."Drugs and Mexican cartel activities are a real issue in Bloomfield," he said. "The cells are already here, and all of the problems that U.S. cities bordering Mexico are now dealing with are going to come this way. It's only a matter of time."Cartel operationsThe Task Force Director said that for the past two years the major Mexican drug cartel operating in San Juan County has been the Juarez cartel, but recently the Sinaloa and Michoacan cartels have gained ground."What's happening here is reflective of what's occurring in Mexico," he said, adding that Region II is concentrating its investigative efforts on individuals three or four levels above the drug addicts, or those who are directly connected to the cartels.Going deeper into how the cartels operate in Bloomfield, he said that four to five males are usually sent by the Mexican cartel to Bloomfield to live, and they spend 80 percent of their time in and around the city.The cartel members bring their families with them to try to fit into the community and to be less noticeable, and do not deal directly with drug addicts, which makes them difficult to detect."These cartel members recruit local gang members to sell drugs to lower-level dealers, who then sell the drugs to the addicts," said the Task force director.Region II agents rely on background checks and surveillance to identify cartel members, and watch for signs like tattoos and the collection of religious artifacts like shrines.Recently, the Sinaloa cartel has added Albuquerque as a stepping stone for its drug distribution in New Mexico, and much of the drugs coming into San Juan County are coming from Phoenix, passing through Albuquerque and then being transported into San Juan County via Highway 550. Drugs continue to be transported to the area from Mexico after going through California.Albuquerque is seeing more "enforcers," or cartel members who resort to kidnappings and violence on order of the cartel leaders in Mexico, he said.While some of the drugs reaching the county stay in the area and are sold to local drug addicts, much of the drugs are further distributed to other states such as Colorado, Utah, Missouri and the Dakotas."We are definitely a distribution hub here," he said.Addressing why our area makes a good distribution hub, he said that the cartel members find it easy to import the drugs via wide-open New Mexico roads and reservation lands, and storage of drugs is also relatively easy here.Obtaining fake documentation is also easy to obtain in this area, despite Bloomfield taking away the ability of illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses."One of the best forgers in the area lives in Shiprock and works by the side of the road. For $30, it's possible for someone to get a whole new identity from this person," he said.Drug trendsWhile Region II has seen a slight increase in the use and distribution of heroin, the task force director says methamphetamine remains the drug of choice in San Juan County, and that 98 percent of the drug cases Region II works on involve meth.What is changing, he said, is the purity of the meth coming into the county."The purity here in San Juan County amazes the rest of the state," he said."We're seeing 94-98 percent purity here, and one recent sample sent to the DEA lab was 100 percent pure. The DEA didn't even know this level of purity was possible."One of the challenges for local cartel members is getting the drug money back to Mexico. Bulk cash smuggling is one way to do this, but a relatively recent trend is to utilize money remitters such as Western Union and local businesses."The cartels know how to stay under the radar, and they'll repeatedly wire $999 back to Mexico to avoid reporting requirements. Since no reporting is required for this amount, the transfers are hard to detect."….Source: [farmington-news/ci_19376653](Return to Contents)Human Remains Found near Rio Rico (AZ)18 November 2011Nogales InternationalThe Medical Examiner's Office in Tucson is trying to determine the cause of death of a person whose remains were discovered by Border Patrol agents west of Rio Rico.At around noon on Tuesday, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office responded to the scene and learned that agents had been patrolling in an area that had been burned by the Murphy Fire when they came across the remains at a place called Peck Mesa. A Border Patrol Agent was killed in the same general area on Dec. 14, 2010.A partial femur, partial pelvis and possibly two radius bones were located, and, according to a sheriff's spokesman, the condition of the bones suggested they had been exposed to the elements for a considerable amount of time.The spokesman added that due to the location, it is believed the remains were those of a undocumented border-crosser."No other evidence was located that would help identify the gender or age of the victim," he said.If the victim is confirmed to be an undocumented immigrant, it would be the 16th such death on the year in Santa Cruz County.Source: [news/human-remains-found-near-rr/article_4d9933e2-11ff-11e1-9fc3-001cc4c002e0.html#.TspNQPLQeSo](Return to Contents)CBP Busts Three Women with ‘Date-Rape’ Drug at Morley Port (AZ)18 November 2011Nogales InternationalU.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Nogales busted three Mexican women between the ages of 54 and 69 on Tuesday for trying to smuggle a strong animal tranquilizer often used in the commission of sexual assaults into the United States.The first incident involved a 54-year-old woman from Nogales, Sonora who was referred for secondary questioning at the Morley pedestrian crossing. CBP said in a news release that when officers searched the woman, they found 30, 10-milliliter bottles of ketamine.In a separate incident that same day, CBP officers found another 30, 10-milliliter bottles of ketamine on a 63-year-old Nogales, Sonora woman attempted to enter the U.S. as a pedestrian. And in a third incident, a 69-year-old woman from Nogales, Sonora - also a pedestrian - was caught with 25 bottles of ketamine. Also 10 milliliters each.In all three instances, the drugs were processed for seizure and the women were referred for visa cancellations, CBP said.It was the second time in recent weeks that Nogales port officers have seized ketamine. On Oct. 20, a 25-year-old woman from Nogales, Ariz. woman was stopped with 50 bottles of the drug.Source: [news/cbp-busts-three-women-with-date-rape-drug-at-morley/article_19d2c6a4-11ff-11e1-afa7-001cc4c002e0.html#.TspNofLQeSo](Return to Contents)Killings Triple in Once Touristy Acapulco (GRO)19 November 2011MSNBCThis city of dazzling hotels and sunlit beaches rose to fame as a playground of Hollywood stars. Today, Acapulco has now earned a very different reputation-for gangland decapitations, kidnappings and extortion.As Mexico's drug war grinds on, killings in Acapulco have almost tripled this year to nearly 900, making the Pacific resort one of the most violent cities in the world and the second-deadliest in the country. The endless reports of slayings have kept the drug chaos on the front page even as killing slows in some parts of Mexico, where in 2010 the war claimed a record 15,273 lives.So horrifying was the death toll that the government, which declared 2011 to be Mexico's "year of tourism," has simply stopped publishing a count.The first destination touted on Mexico's official tourism website is Acapulco. Outwardly, the beach front is calm, and the city remains studded with hotels, bars and restaurants steeped in its colorful past. But Acapulco's main promenades have taken on a more somber aspect. Where cabs once jostled to pick up fares, taxi ranks stand empty; bars awaiting custom blast music into space; and idle waiters straighten chairs at countless tables that line the long boulevards of the Zona Dorada tourist drag."This has been really terrible for Mexico's image," said Victor Hernandez, bookkeeper at hotel Los Flamingos, a favorite getaway of film stars John Wayne and Errol Flynn. "If there's no tourism, the economy goes to hell."The troubled areas now extend right into the historic square, or Zocalo, just 100 meters from the ocean between the Zona Dorada and the fabled diving cliffs of La Quebrada.A killing at an Internet café there on the afternoon of Oct. 19 was nothing out of the ordinary, said Erika Hernandez, 20."I heard three shots and took cover," said Hernandez, a shop attendant at a clothes boutique ten yards from the café, where two gunmen walked in and shot dead a 35-year-old man. "A lot of young guys are mixed up in crime. You get used to it." But not enough to want to make a life there. "In two, three months I'm looking at a move to Mexico City," she said.An examination of the drug war in Acapulco shows that Mexico's relentless stream of violence has hit this tourist haven harder than most cities precisely because for so long it was viewed as a place where people come to forget their troubles, not fear for their lives. The war's spread to this pillar of the country's tourism industry is a milestone in the conflict. The jolt to Mexicans' psyche is akin to that caused by the violence ravaging the business capital of Monterrey. Only the border city of Ciudad Juarez is more violent.The fate of Acapulco and the broader Mexican tourism sector is crucial to the country's economy-and to the future of President Felipe Calderon's ruling party, which is seeking re-election in 2012.Mindful of the damage being done, Calderon last month sent hundreds of extra soldiers and police to Acapulco's home state of Guerrero. Initial results of operation "Safe Guerrero" have given some in the city encouragement. But Calderon was in no mood to celebrate during a review of the situation on October 26."Guerrero and Acapulco in particular have for decades been part of Mexico's image, domestically and abroad," he said in the city. "They've been a fundamental factor in opening up Mexico as a natural destination for international tourists. But today, we know it has been attacked by a terrible cancer, the cancer that organized crime represents."By mid-October, Acapulco's official homicide tally stood at 823, a jump of 188 percent from the same period in 2010, according to figures compiled by Guerrero's government. That gave the city of 790,000 a murder rate of 131 per 100,000 people, a figure rivaling the deadliest places on the planet. More than 50 other murders have since followed.….Source: [today.msnbc.id/45363491/ns/today-today_news/t/killings-triple-once-touristy-acapulco/#.Tsp0AvLQeSo](Return to Contents)Mexico City- Two Clandestine Factories Where Synthetic Drugs Are Produced- Dismantled! (MICH)21 November 2011Narco-Bullit BlogSoldiers from the Army dismantled two clandestine factories where synthetic drugs are produced in Michoacán, they said 300 kilograms of the drug known as “crystal” and more than five thousand gallons of chemicals, no arrests were made.The Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) reported that soldiers of the Military Zone 21 ground surveys conducted the raid in the vicinity of the municipalities of San Juan Tiquicheo and New Parangaricutiro, which enabled the soldiers to locate and identify the clandestine labs which were used to produce drugs. In the laboratory they initially seized five liters of liquid amphetamine, two thousand 240 liters of acetic anhydride in 10 drums, and six drums of 400 liters of isopropyl alcohol, as well as 275 thousand pounds of caustic soda, and equipment to manufacture synthetic drugs.In a second property the military claimed 300 kilograms of the drug known as “Crystal”, and two thousand 355 liters of unknown chemicals and other chemicals whose weight has yet to be determined.Source: [killer/?p=607](Return to Contents) Decapitated Animals Left As Warning to Narco Criminals in Guerrero State (GRO)18 November 2011Mexico Gulf Reporter BlogGuerrero state, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is one of the most dangerous regions in the country. Drug related violence has severely damaged the tourist trade in Acapulco in recent years, and it shows no sign of recovering anytime soon.In a small community in the northern part of the state, police this morning reported the discovery of 13 decapitated dogs. The bodies of the stray animals had been left on a public road; an event which police said was unprecedented.A message was left near the remains. "This is what's going to happen to the rats and kidnappers, watch yourselves you traitorous dogs, we're going to clean up the plaza (commercial area)." The warning was left by a group calling itself "La Fantasma." Police said they had not previously heard of the organization, but pointed out that the message was clearly directed to drug cartels operating in the area. Such threats, or narcomensajes, are frequently left at the scene of violent crimes by drug cartels or those who claim to be fighting them.Law enforcement authorities continue to debate whether vigilantes or paramilitaries are at work in Mexico. Several months ago a group calling itself Los Matazetas -- or the Zeta killers -- surfaced via a YouTube posting. They vowed to clean up the city of Veracruz, which closely rivals Acapulco in extreme narcoviolence, and said that they were merely trying to assist police. The Mexican government's position is that such organizations are themselves criminal, and quite probably competitors of larger drug cartels.Source: [mexicogulfreporter.2011/11/decapitated-animals-left-as-warning-to.html](Return to Contents)CARRIBEAN, CENTRAL, AND SOUTH AMERICAEcuadorean Police Seize Almost Half a Ton of Cocaine (EC)16 November 2011Dialogo (AFP)The Ecuadorean police seized 436 kg of cocaine in an operation in which six people were detained, including two Colombians, the head of that country’s anti-narcotics division, Pedro Gallegos, announced.The police commander indicated that the drugs were hidden in cardboard boxes used to export flowers.Between January and October 2011, around 13.2 tons of drugs, chiefly cocaine, were confiscated in Ecuador’s two most populous provinces, according to the police.In the coastal province of El Guayas (in southwestern Ecuador), 11.5 tons of narcotics were seized, compared to 7.3 tons during the same period in 2010.Meanwhile, in the Andean province of Pichincha (the capital of which is Quito), the police seized 1.7 tons of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, and heroin.Ecuador seized a record 68 tons of drugs (64 tons of which was cocaine) in the whole of 2009 and 18 tons in 2010, according to the police.Source: [en_GB/articles/rmisa/features/regional_news/2011/11/16/feature-ex-2670](Return to Contents)Juan Manuel Santos: Britons Who Take Cocaine Are Destroying Colombia (CO)21 November 2011The Daily MailThink of Colombia and just one word springs to mind – cocaine. The country’s new president, Juan Manuel Santos, who heads to London this month, wants to change all that – but says the West also needs to kick its nasty little habit.Juan Manuel Santos, cocaine Juan Manuel Santos says people who take cocaine in Britain are effectively helping to kill ColombiansBritons who take cocaine are destroying Colombia and killing Colombians, the country’s president says.In an exclusive interview at the presidential palace in Bogotá, Juan Manuel Santos highlighted the price paid by the South American nation for the cocaine trade ahead of a visit to Britain later this month.Colombia is emerging from a four decade-long civil war involving both left-wing guerillas like Farc and right-wing paramilitaries, who have been funded by drug trafficking.Mr. Santos, 60, said Colombia, the world center of the cocaine trade, had suffered more than any other country in the world from the West’s insatiable appetite for the drug.He said: ‘I say that every time somebody in London sniffs coke he destroys the environment here in the tropical forests – because it stimulates deforestation – and probably kills a couple of people.’The president, who swept to power last year after a landslide election victory, has urged world leaders to consider a new approach to tackling drugs and said he was prepared to legalize marijuana if other countries did the same.Mr. Santos said he would even consider legalizing cocaine as a possible solution and insisted Colombia had a ‘certain moral authority to discuss this issue’ as it has lost so much from the drugs trade.A key priority for Colombia – in common with other Latin American countries such as Mexico, which have seen thousands killed in drug-related violence – is reducing demand in the US and Europe.‘What I think the world should do is sit down and rationally discuss this problem which is growing – it’s not diminishing, it’s growing,’ he said.Mr. Santos added: ‘We are willing to explore new avenues but in the meantime we need to continue our policy of attacking each link of the chain because for us it’s a matter of national security.‘The drug trafficking is what finances all of the violent groups in Colombia. We are the country who has suffered most, more than any other country, so for us we have no alternative in the meantime but to fight, with everything we have, the cultivation, the labs, money laundering, the assets, consumption – all the links in the chain.’ The affable London-educated politician and former journalist was in buoyant mood just three days after announcing how government troops had killed 63-year-old Alfonso Cano, the leader of Marxist rebel group Farc, in his jungle hideout.He said: ‘This is the biggest blow to Farc in their history. What happened to Cano is proof we can take any of them, anywhere.’But Mr. Santos is aware that despite a rapidly growing economy, described as an ‘ideal market for British companies’, the country still has far to go – Colombia has the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere and leads the world in killings of trade unionists.Mr. Santos, who said he has ‘clicked’ with David Cameron and remains a ‘very good friend’ of Tony Blair, said: ‘Of course there room for improvement; we’re still not a paradise. I’m the first one to recognize that and that’s why we have to redouble our efforts.’Source: [metro.co.uk/news/882330-juan-manuel-santos-britons-who-take-cocaine-are-destroying-colombia](Return to Contents)OPINION AND ANALYSISMexico Gives Muddled Response to Damning Human Rights Report (MX)18 November 2011InSight CrimeHuman Rights Watch provided a thorough critique of Mexico’s anti-crime policies, describing a growing pattern of abuses by security officials amid a backdrop of stratospheric levels of violence, but the government's response seems wrong-headed.The document, which was published last week and is titled "Neither Rights Nor Security," argues that Calderon’s aggressive combat of criminal groups has failed on two fronts: it has utterly failed to rein in the violence, and it has proven unwilling or incapable of fielding a security force that does not carry out human rights violations.The New York-based NGO spent two years compiling the report, which focuses on three different classifications of abuse: torture, enforced disappearances (in which security agencies are suspected of participating), and extrajudicial killings. As the report’s authors write:Human Rights Watch found evidence of a significant increase in human rights violations since Calderon launched his “war on organized crime.” In the five states examined, members of security forces systematically use torture to obtain forced confessions and information about criminal groups. And evidence points to the involvement of soldiers and police in extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances around the country.The patterns of violations that emerge in the accounts of victims and eyewitnesses, an analysis of official data, and interviews with government officials, law enforcement officers, and civil society groups strongly suggest that the cases documented in this report are not isolated acts. Rather, they are examples of abusive practices endemic to the current public security strategy.The report also discusses the inadequacies of the government’s attempts to limit such abuses. Accusations are frequently ignored or downgraded by prosecutors, while government officials often blame the victim by assuming that anyone unlucky enough to be victimized by soldiers or police must have had it coming. Furthermore, just 16 out of 32 Mexican states (including the federal district of Mexico City) have specific laws against torture, while only a quarter have legislation explicitly banning enforced disappearances.Calderon responded, as he has in the past, by saying the main threat to citizens is from criminals, not the government. It is almost certainly true that the human rights violators represent a small minority of the government officials, while violating human rights is a rather fundamental part of most gangs’ operations, but in his response, Calderon is skirting the issue.The most obvious flaw with Calderon’s logic is that he is comparing apples to oranges -- the criminal gangs are more abusive precisely because they are criminal gangs. If the best the government can do to address the issues raised by the HRW report is to say that the criminals are worse, it’s hard to imagine a more damning indictment.Furthermore, while the government is understandably embarrassed by the content of the report, the automatic assumption that the ultimate interests of HRW and the Mexican government are in conflict is short-sighted. One point that does not get made often enough is that the abuses outlined in the report are not the case of a juggernaut government stepping on a few toes while otherwise doing a good job; they are symptomatic of a broadly ineffective force unable to keep up with the demands of the task at hand. If the Mexican military and police agencies were less prone to extra-legal activities, than they would almost certainly be more effective in their pursuit of criminals.The authors of the HRW report point to the rising violence in Mexico as a sign that the government’s policies are failing. Here the evidence is a bit less clear. The government’s claim is essentially that their aggressive stance against criminals, resulting in many clashes and deaths, is necessary because of years of official collusion or indifference regarding organized crime. The argument is that things have to get worse before they can get better. In other words, insofar as it is related to the government’s strategy and not the dynamics within the drug trade, the violence today is the necessary byproduct of investment in a safer future for Mexico.That is not implausible, and if it proves true, it will be an effective rejoinder to those who say all the suffering has been in vain. However, it is an impossible claim to prove today. Consequently, Calderon is asking Mexico to endure an enormous amount of bloodshed in exchange for an improvement at an undetermined point in the future. A further problem with with Calderon’s argument, and an inherent flaw with any strategy that entails a huge upsurge in violence for uncertain future gains, is that if he’s wrong, it will not be Calderon who has to pick up the pieces, as he leaves office in December 2012. Unfortunately, the Mexicans bearing the burden of the criminal battles have nowhere to go.Source: [insight-latest-news/item/1865-mexico-gives-muddled-reponse-to-damning-human-rights-report](Return to Contents)Politics Turns Border Woes into Sideshow (US/MX)18 November 2011San Antonio Express-NewsOn the one hand, White House officials convened a border law enforcement forum to counter claims that Mexican drug cartels have turned the U.S.-Mexico border into a war zone. On the other, federal agents recently dismantled a cartel network, with San Antonio connections, used to funnel drug money into Mexico.What are we to believe? Is the border area in the cross hairs of a cartel war gone amok?The fact that drug smugglers move their profits through San Antonio is neither new nor astonishing. Cross-border money siphoning has been around since the establishment of the border. It follows that it is not astonishing that the funnel was stopped.Border violence has also been around for that long. The moment you set up a border and establish laws about what can and cannot come across, there will be people willing to profit from breaking the law. That willingness entails violence.The matter of concern, though, is the upsurge in cartel violence in Mexico (40,000 murders so far) and whether that surge has crossed into U.S. territory. One of the officials at the White House forum was the Hidalgo County Sheriff. Last October, a shootout that began among rival drug smugglers in Mexico ended in his jurisdiction — one of his deputies was wounded. But the Sheriff maintains that cross-border violence is not an issue. He was quoted in the Express-News as saying “The border is not in chaos. We are not at ‘ground zero.'”Granted, “ground zero” is not at the border. But the issue is not the chaos; the issue is the spillage. And there are rural areas along the border where law enforcement is scarce and where ranchers fear the cartel violence — many have been threatened and in one instance in New Mexico a rancher was slain.But this is also a given: the opportunity for illicit profit stretches along the entire border, so if the cops get tough in the cities, the robbers will move to the rural areas. Is it a war zone? We'd have to leave that to the experts.And so you have dueling statements and round-table forums.It's no coincidence that the opposing views in this issue stand on opposite sides of the political divide. Republicans are sounding the alarm; Democrats are defending against the claim as they say they're defending the border. This is not new either. As long as there's been a two-party political system in our country there have been claims and counter claims.Yet in the time that it's taken Mexico to amass 40,000 killings, the rate of violence in U.S. cities and counties along the border has diminished. This does not diminish the threat to ranchers who feel accosted by cartel thugs. But it does highlight the fact that in order to pay attention to the problem at the border, we need to stop creating a war zone in our politics. Political chaos will do nothing to stop violence, real or not.The issue is real, but politics has turned it into a side show.Source: [opinion/columnists/victor_landa/article/Politics-turns-border-woes-into-sideshow-2276756.php](Return to Contents)Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 8: 230,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Mexico and ‘Narco-Refugee’ Potentials for the United States (US/MX)19 November 2011Small Wars JournalKey Information:Via the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s (Oslo) Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2010:Drug-cartel violence in Mexico escalated dramatically in 2010, with the violence reaching the highest levels since it broke out in 2006; as many as 15,000 people were killed as a result during the year. In 2010, northern states bordering the United States, where trafficking routes were concentrated, were most affected. While the violence has caused forced displacement, the government has not systematically collected figures to indicate its scale.In 2010, most IDPs originated from the states most affected by violence, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas. Surveys conducted by a research centre in Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua estimated that around 230,000 people had fled their homes. According to the survey's findings, roughly half of them had crossed the border into the United States, with an estimated 115,000 people left internally displaced, predominantly in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila and Veracruz. There have been few attempts to define the scale of displacement in small rural towns in Tamaulipas and Chihuahua, even though the violence is believed to be even more intense in those rural areas. Furthermore, forced displacement has taken place alongside strong economic migration flows, making it harder to identify and document.In Tamaulipas, the Cartel del Golfo and another cartel known as the Zetas fought for trafficking routes, terrorising the civilian population as a way to assert territorial control, and also targeting local authorities and journalists. The municipalities most affected were Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Alemán, Camargo and Díaz Ordaz.In Ciudad Mier, a small locality near the border with the United States, the Zetas issued an open threat to all the inhabitants in November 2010, saying that people who remained in the town would be killed. As a result, as many as 400 people fled to the nearby town of Ciudad Miguel Alemán.In Chihuahua, where the Cartel de Sinaloa began to challenge the dominance of the Cartel de Juárez and its control of trafficking routes, the large industrial town of Ciudad Juárez also experienced increased violence and forced displacement. The Municipal Planning Institute reported in 2010 that there were up to 116,000 empty homes in Juárez.In 2010, federal authorities did not acknowledge, assess or document the needs of the people displaced, instead focusing their efforts on fighting the drug cartels. International agencies present in the country with protection mandates, including UNHCR and ICRC, followed events but, in the absence of government acquiescence, they did not establish programs to provide protection and assistance or promote durable solutions for those forcibly displaced….Via Dr. Paul Rexton Kan’s Mexico’s “Narco-Refugees”: The Looming Challenge for U.S. National Security:Since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels, there has been a rise in the number of Mexican nationals seeking political asylum in the United States to escape the ongoing drug cartel violence in their home country. Political asylum cases in general are claimed by those who are targeted for their political beliefs or ethnicity in countries that are repressive or are failing. Mexico is neither. Nonetheless, if the health of the Mexican state declines because criminal violence continues, increases, or spreads, U.S. communities will feel an even greater burden on their systems of public safety and public health from “narco-refugees.” Given the ever increasing cruelty of the cartels, the question is whether and how the U.S. Government should begin to prepare for what could be a new wave of migrants coming from Mexico.Allowing Mexicans to claim asylum could potentially open a flood gate of migrants to the United States during a time when there is a very contentious national debate over U.S. immigration laws pertaining to illegal immigrants. On the other hand, to deny the claims of asylum seekers and return them to Mexico where they might very well be killed, strikes at the heart of American values of justice and humanitarianism. This monograph focuses on the asylum claims of Mexicans who unwillingly leave Mexico rather than those who willingly enter the United States legally or illegally. To successfully navigate through this complex issue will require a greater level of understanding and vigilance at all levels of the U.S. Government.Analysis:Most news stories and analyses have concentrated on violence, corruption, illicit narcotics/weapons/monetary seizures, and the arrest/killing of cartel leaders in Mexico as a result of the ongoing criminal insurgencies taking place in that country. The issue of large numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) now found in Mexico due to the effects of cartel and gang violence has been generally overlooked. Insights provided by the Justice in Mexico Project (Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego) pertaining to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre report suggest:The report also stressed that the Mexican government does not compile displacement figures for people who have had to leave their homes because of “turf battles” between drug cartels, which has forced the Centre to rely on information from local researchers. Based on this information, the Centre estimates that as many as half of Mexico’s IDPs may have migrated to the United States.While Mexico does not account for displaced populations as a result of the drug war, the Mexican Census taken in mid-2010 revealed that two-thirds of the homes in Praxedis G. Guerrero, a town east of Ciudad Juarez, have been abandoned, most likely due to the violence created from the wars between the Sinoloa and Juarez cartels in the area. The Internal Displacement report also indicates that many IDPs in Mexico were forced to move from their places of origins by other causes than drug violence, such as the 1994 Chiapas uprising.Many Mexican security experts who have analyzed the narco wars were unaware of the IDP issue or at least downplayed its significance. Until last year, the fact that 116,000 empty homes in Juárez existed was not known to many security analysts. This was evident in the RAND Delphi expert elicitation published as The Challenges of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations in October 2011. This issue can be viewed pertaining to Table 4-1 as it relates to the ‘Demographics: Houses significant refugees or internally displaced persons’ scores. The rounded result and unrest score were both ‘0’ The experts participating could conceivably attest to the spirited debates related to this specific issue (Note—the mean score was 0.18 as shown in Table 3.1 Policies focusing on ‘Narco-Refugees’—individuals who leave Mexico unwillingly and submit asylum claims in the U.S. as political refugees— also need to be further developed. Since cartels and gangs are de facto considered apolitical organizations (even though armed, violent, and increasingly politicized)— individuals who flee from local cartel and gang threats can be caught in a ‘Catch 22 situation’ when seeking political refugee status. Additionally, ‘Mexi-stan’ concerns and the interrelationship of U.S. drug policy vis-à-vis immigration policy and national security as they relate to the ‘narco-refugee’ phenomenon as highlighted by Dr. Kan have to be further examined. This later insight was earlier highlighted by Tony Payan in The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration, and Homeland Security published in 2006, though he warned of not conflating these issues. Still, it is important for SWJ readers to recognize that Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) exist in Mexico due to the criminal insurgencies taking place and that ‘Narco-Refugee’ potentials increasingly exist for the United States.Source: [blog/mexican-cartel-strategic-note-no-8](Return to Contents)Effects of Mexican Drug War Lasting, Far-Reaching (US/MX)19 November 2011Austin American StatesmanEver since the narco war in Mexico bathed the republic in blood, U.S. academics, as well as political and economic interests nervously have followed developments in the armed struggle between the cartels and the Mexican government.The outcome is far from certain as Mexico approaches the 2012 presidential elections. The winner of the six-year presidency will inherit a war that not only strips Mexico of its security, but of capital and the talent that generates it.Weary of constant kidnapping dangers and paying off narcos — like their U.S. mafia counterparts, cartel capos call their shakedowns "taxes" — Mexican business people are taking their money and ideas out of the country. That, despite a relatively healthy Mexican economy. There was a conference in Austin last week to lure Mexican businesses to Central Texas. As the drug war drags on, organizers of such events should find more Mexicans willing to listen to the pitch.Mexican officials have been worried about talent and youth lost to immigration since the 1990s when they fretted about the loss of younger, able working class of people.The recession in the United States and the adoption of strict anti-immigration measures in some states has slowed that immigration.According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, "The number of new immigrant arrivals from Mexico has fallen off steeply in recent years. According to ... (an) analysis of Mexican government data, the number of Mexicans annually leaving Mexico for the U.S. declined from more than 1 million in 2006 to 404,000 in 2010. ... On the U.S. side, declining job opportunities and increased border enforcement may have made the U.S. less attractive to potential Mexican immigrants. And in Mexico, recent strong economic growth may have reduced the 'push' factors that often lead Mexicans to emigrate to the U.S."If the researchers are right, the U.S. is trading working class immigrants for entrepreneurial ones, though the number of business people immigrating northward will not be near the magnitude of immigration wave to hit the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. The longer the drug war drags on and the more narcos function as de facto governments along the border and in western Mexico where marijuana and poppy fields flourish, the more incentive the business class has to weigh options, if not weigh anchor.The vacuum created by the flight of legitimate businesses will broaden opportunities for the cartel bosses who have big profits to launder, and with that money, they can attain even more power. That increased clout will keep drugs moving north and intensify competition for the routes to the U.S. market, Interstate 35 included.Unless, that is, the next Mexican president can figure out a way to broker something that resembles peace in the six years he or she is president.President Felipe Calderón's unpopular drug war works against his National Action Party, or PAN, keeping the presidency in next year's elections. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, loyalists see the election as a chance to regain the power they lost when Vicente Fox was elected president in 2000. He was succeeded by Calderón.PRI won this month's gubernatorial election in the state of Michoacán, one in which the drug trade is extensive and drug traffickers are influential. Luisa María Calderón, the president's sister and the PAN candidate, ran a close second but lost. Jubilant PRIstas point to the election as a sign of things to come.Talk politics in Mexico, and sooner or later someone will mention the good ol' days when the PRI ran things and narcos knew their places. It is the same kind of nostalgia that has some in that country remembering with affection the 35-year reign of Porfirio Dìaz. There was order then, the line goes. That order disintegrated into a revolution that lasted 10 years and in which millions of Mexicans either died in, or fled the violence.Whoever wins the 2012 election might be tempted to make something that looks like peace with the cartels. You can bet the terms of such a deal will not include that the drug traffickers hold going out of business sales.Calderón gambled on enforcement and arguably made matters worse. Whether his successor will have the inclination — or the freedom — to seek other ways of stemming the flow of drugs north is matter very much to be seen. And we here in Texas should be more than mere disinterested observers. Border fences — even if electrified — will not slow them down. With the kind of money the narcos have at their disposal, they can hire a division of electricians.Source: [opinion/effects-of-mexican-drug-war-lasting-far-reaching-1981719.html](Return to Contents)Cease-Fire in the War on Drugs? (CO)18 November 2011North County TimesLike those generals who used to discover that nuclear weapons were not a good thing about 20 minutes after they took off their uniforms and started collecting their pensions, we have had a parade of former presidents who knew that the war on drugs was a bad thing ---- but only mentioned it after they were already ex-presidents. Now, at last, we have one who is saying it out loud while he is still in office.President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, the country that has suffered even more than Mexico from the drug wars, is an honest and serious man. He is also very brave, because any political leader who advocates the legalization of narcotic drugs will become a prime target of the prohibition industry. He has chosen to do it anyway."We are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the past 40 years," he told "The Observer" in a recent interview in Bogota. "A new approach should try and take away the violent profit that comes with drug trafficking ... If that means legalizing (drugs) ... then I will welcome it."Santos has no intention of becoming a kamikaze politician: "What I won't do is become the vanguard of that movement (to legalize drugs) because then I will be crucified. But I would gladly participate in those discussions, because we are the country that's still suffering most ... from the high consumption in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe in general."There are no such discussions, of course. Santos is being disingenuous about this; he is really trying to start a serious international debate on drug legalization, not to join one. But the time may be ripe for such a debate, because it is now almost universally acknowledged (outside political circles) that the war on drugs has been an extremely bloody failure.Twenty years ago, a Nobel Prize winner, the most influential economist of the 20th century and an icon of the right, said: "If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel."It is only because the government makes the drugs illegal that the criminal cartel has a highly profitable monopoly on meeting the demand.He also said: "Government never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do."But there are a quarter-million Americans in jail for possessing or selling drugs. Nobody is in jail for producing, marketing or eating junk food.He was right, of course, but 40 years of the war on drugs have also shown that arguments based on logic, natural justice or history (the obvious parallel with alcohol prohibition in the U.S. in the 1920s and early '30s) have very little effect on policy in the main drug-importing nations. Many politicians there know that the war on drugs is futile and stupid, but the political cost of leaving the herd and saying so out loud is too high.The political leaders who are starting to say that it's time to end the war and legalize the drugs are almost all in the producer nations, where the damage has been far graver than in the drug-importing countries. In practice, therefore, they are almost all Latin American leaders ---- but even there they have waited until they left office to make their views known.Former Mexican President Vicente Fox supported the U.S.-led war on drugs when he was in office in 2000 to 2006, but more recently he has condemned it as an unmitigated disaster."We should consider legalizing the production, sale and distribution of drugs," he wrote on his blog. "Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.""Legalization does not mean that drugs are good," Fox added, "but we have to see it as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to make huge profits, which in turn increases their power and capacity to corrupt."Naturally, Fox only said all that when he was no longer president, because otherwise the United States would have punished Mexico severely for stepping out of line. In the same spirit, former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico made a joint public statement that drug prohibition had failed in 2009 ---- after they had all left office.But gradually, Latin American leaders are losing their fear of Washington. Last year, Mexican President Felipe Calderon called for a debate on the legalization of the drug trade, though he carefully stressed that he himself was against the idea. (Then why did you bring it up, Felipe?)And now President Santos of Colombia has come out, still cautiously, to say that he would consider legalizing not only marijuana but cocaine.The international discussion on legalization that Santos wants will not start tomorrow or even next year, but common sense on drugs is finally getting the upper hand over ignorance, fear and dogmatism. And cash-strapped governments will eventually realize how much the balance sheet could be improved by taxing legalized drug consumption rather than wasting hundreds of billions in a futile attempt to reduce consumption.Source: [news/opinion/columnists/dyer/dyer-cease-fire-in-the-war-on-drugs/article_2ac71c69-f578-57ff-8234-86392d566019.html](Return to Contents)Mexico's War with Itself (MX)21 November 2011Los Angeles TimesMexican President Felipe Calderon's most enduring legacy may well turn out to be the death toll from his country's bloody drug war. Since 2006, some 45,000 civilians have died, and the body count continues to rise. The homicide rate increased by more than 260% between 2007 and 2010. And a new report by Human Rights Watch indicates that drug cartels and organized crime are not solely responsible for the bloodletting. The military, deployed to protect civilians, may have caused many of their deaths, according to the group's study.The report is just the latest reminder that Calderon's security strategy, including his decision to deploy more than 50,000 soldiers against the cartels, has not reduced violence, and may in fact be fueling it.Mexico's troubles have no easy fix. Poverty, corruption and weak rule of law are all part of the problem. So are extrajudicial killings and other abuses by the government and the military, according to the report. If Calderon intends to push forward with his military strategy — and he shows no sign of changing course — then he ought to, at the very least, implement some safeguards to address the abuses taking place at the hands of authorities. Judicial reforms would be a good place to begin. His administration took a promising step forward earlier this year when it appointed Marisela Morales to serve as attorney general. A former prosecutor who had led a unit dedicated to fighting organized crime, she has since fired dozens of federal prosecutors and moved to clean up corruption in the office.But much more remains to be done. Most of the constitutional reforms approved on paper in 2008 remain on paper. That includes a call to move away from an "inquisitorial" legal system to an "adversarial" model in which defendants and victims can challenge evidence in open court. And calls for overhauling investigations of alleged human rights abuses have gone unanswered. Currently, only cases of torture, rape and enforced disappearance are handled by civilian prosecutors. Military investigators oversee all other prosecutions of abuse, including those involving extrajudicial killings. That has led to concern that investigations of soldiers accused of shooting civilians will not be impartial and will lack accountability.The United States, which has pledged more than $1.6 billion since 2007 to assist Mexico in fighting drug cartels and criminal gangs, can help. The current administration ought to urge Calderon to focus on strengthening Mexico's judicial system and encourage his government to adopt reforms.Source: [news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-mexico-20111121,0,2527277.story](Return to Contents)Rising Danger in the Aftermath of the Iranian Assassination Plot (MX)21 November 2011International Affairs ReviewAs the details of the Iranian assassination plot against the Saudi Ambassador to the United States unfold, one thing is clear. This event signifies a new and dangerous direction in Iranian covert action around the world.It is a story more suitable to a Hollywood blockbuster than reality: the coordinated assassination of the Saudi ambassador and bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in a joint operation of Iran’s covert Quds Force and Mexico’s Los Zetas cartel. While it is clear that the plot, in development from May to September 2011, was never in jeopardy of reaching fruition, the ramifications are significant for international security.With exact details coming under widespread scrutiny, the central point of contention hinges on whether the operation was authorized by the highest levels of the Iranian regime. This debate is moot. Whether the attack was a rogue element of Iran’s Quds Force or an orchestrated plan from the Iranian leadership, it represents an evolution of the Iranian threat. Iran’s recent divergence from their traditional tactics, increased fragmentation within the Iranian government, and heightened tensions stemming from Iran’s unabated pursuit of nuclear capabilities all contribute to a new, emerging danger.Iran has had an affinity for covert operations since its 1979 revolution. It has cultivated strong relationships with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian regions by providing necessary financial support, military hardware, and training. Furthermore, it has expanded its network into Europe and Latin America by strengthening economic ties and developing sleeper cells among Muslim populations. Iranian-sponsored operations have been characterized by discipline, organization, and rationality.The September 2011 assassination plot symbolizes an evolution of Iran’s policy and a significant divergence from its own established covert operation tactics. Iran has traditionally utilized small hit squads that only carried out assassinations with a high probability of success. The targets of these attacks were not leaders of foreign states but Iranian dissidents that spoke out against the regime. In addition, while they have shown tremendous support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, they have not tasked these groups with assassinations in Western states. The details of the Saudi assassination do not line up with these traditional means of operation. If the plot was approved by the government then it demonstrates a new willingness to accept greater collateral damage and a desire for bolder demonstrations of Iranian power. If, however, the plot was the work of a rogue element in the Quds Force it exemplifies the ability of individual segments in the regime to orchestrate and implement grand terrorist plots outside the purview of their superiors.The schism that is developing within the Iranian government between Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad make the circumstances of the plot all the more acute. Ahmadinejad has quietly been purging the bureaucracy and replacing key leadership positions with individuals loyal to him. In response, Khamenei has begun systematically firing Ahmadinejad’s base of support. While the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is still firmly under the command of Khamenei, government forces may use the situation to increase their own autonomy and become less wedded to the current chain of command. Additionally, the two factions may use extreme international action, such as assassination, to legitimize their side and demonstrate strength to their internal opposition. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi alluded to this division and lack of communication. Salehi was first unaware of the plot and then later admitted complicity.Lastly, tensions are escalating as Iran refuses to capitulate to international pressure to end its alleged weapons programs and threatens severe consequences if any military action is taken. The United States continues to advocate for harsher economic sanctions, while Israel has responded with serious consideration of using military force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. The swelling tensions within this environment may either increase the division between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, or solidify and embolden the Iranian leadership to collectively pursue more brazen actions. Both cases allude to more extreme terrorist activity and exacerbate the growing security threat posed to the United States. As this nuclear crisis heightens, any form of radical terrorist activity, whether authorized by the regime or not, would lead the international community to a point of no return.The debate over whether the upper level of Iran’s regime approved the plot is simply an argument of semantics. The simple fact is that there has been a unique transformation of operational conduct from previous Iranian covert operations. Whether this plot was a rogue operation by the Quds Force or a significant shift in foreign policy, it is clear that the Iranian threat has evolved. Coming to terms with a domestic power struggle and hostility on the international stage, the Iranian regime seems likely to resort to increasingly reckless measures.Source: [node/365](Return to Contents) ................
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