Pubdate: Sat, 26 Jan 2008
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2008 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: David McLemore, The Dallas Morning News

U.S. WARY OF TUMULT IN MEXICO

Officials Hope to Keep Drug Cartels' Violence From Spilling North of the Border

U.S. officials are warily watching Mexico's fierce response to the 
escalating drug violence plaguing border cities, fearful that the 
bloody gunbattles erupting in places like Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad 
Juarez may soon break out on the U.S. side.

Helping Mexico and preventing an outbreak on the U.S. side of the 
border will require a multidimensional strategy that involves both 
nations, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

"We have to use all the tools at our disposal to work with Mexico to 
curb the violence in Mexico before we have gunfights in streets of 
American cities," Mr. Cuellar said. "We can't say we'll put up a 
fence and think that will curtail violence."

Mr. Cuellar and Michael McCaul, D-Austin, recently ended a three-day 
visit to Mexico to study that country's efforts to battle the drug 
cartels in advance of a congressional debate on a proposed $1.4 
billion aid package to assist in Mexico's war on drugs.

More than 2,500 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last 
year. Already in 2008, about 100 people have been killed in brazen 
gunfights between federal troops and police and drug trafficking 
gangs in Tijuana and just across the Rio Grande in Reynosa and Rio Bravo.

The U.S. side of the border has not been exempt from drug violence. 
Cartel leaders in Nuevo Laredo have successfully ordered hits on 
rival drug dealers on the U.S. side. And U.S. lawmen have 
increasingly become targets.

Border Patrol officials said violent assaults on agents along the 
Southwestern border totaled 987 in fiscal 2007, a 31 percent increase 
over the year before.

"The American public must understand that this situation is no longer 
about illegal immigration or narcotics trafficking," said David V. 
Aguilar, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. "It is about criminals and 
smuggling organizations fighting our agents with lethal force to take 
over a part of American territory so they can conduct criminal activity."

The most recent assault occurred Jan. 19, when a civilian Hummer 
carrying drugs ran down a Border Patrol agent near the 
Arizona-California line. Border Patrol officials said the killing was 
intentional.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the killing of 
Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar a "heinous act."

Chief Aguilar said confrontations along the border in the past year 
have resulted in attacks on agents with firearms, knives, bats, 
firebombs, steel pipes, vehicles and rocks.

"U.S. Border Patrol agents protect and defend America's borders, but 
they also protect our border communities from the criminal element's 
attempts to turn communities into battlegrounds," he said.

Crackdown in Mexico

On Wednesday, Mexican federal police announced the arrest of Jesus 
Navarro Montes, 22, in Sonora state in connection with the killing of 
Agent Aguilar.

He was being held in Mexicali on Mexican charges of human smuggling.

Acting on Mexican President Felipe Calderon's vow to hit the cartels 
hard, heavily armed federal agents on Tuesday encircled police 
stations in Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros to relieve police 
officers of duty, disarm them and search for evidence that may link 
them to drug traffickers.

A day earlier, Mexican federal authorities announced the capture of 
Alfredo Beltran Leyva in Culiacan. He is purportedly a major operator 
in the Sinaloa cartel.

Border law enforcement officers, while watchful of the rising 
violence on the Mexican side, say that so far it hasn't shifted 
directly onto the U.S. side.

"All the sheriffs along the border are extremely concerned about the 
escalation in violence in Mexico," said Don Reay, executive director 
of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition. "Anytime we see the violence 
increase as it has recently, the more worried we get that will cross 
directly onto our side."

The violence that broke out in the streets of Reynosa and Rio Bravo, 
Mexico, hasn't spread across the border to Hidalgo County, Sheriff 
Guadalupe Trevino Jr. said.

Border Patrol officials held a closed-door briefing for Rio Grande 
Valley law enforcement officers Thursday on the outbreak of violence 
just across the river.

"We tell our guys to be careful out there, to make sure we know where 
they are and to make sure they have backup on calls to the river," 
Sheriff Trevino said.

Battle for Entry Points

The sheriff said the cartels are battling over control of entry 
points into the U.S., not U.S. turf.

"The cartels know we're better trained, better equipped and not as 
corruptible as our Mexican counterparts," Sheriff Trevino said. "If a 
gunbattle erupted in Hidalgo County and a police officer or a 
civilian was killed, the cartels know the wrath of God would fall on them."

Mr. Reay said the Texas Sheriff's Coalition has joined with border 
law enforcement agencies in three other states to form the Southwest 
Border Sheriff's Coalition to share intelligence and enforcement methods.

Mexico can't break the power of the cartels alone, Mr. Cuellar said. 
As a backstop to the enforcement by Mexican federal authorities, the 
U.S. government will add another 3,000 Border Patrol agents this 
year, as well as add more electronic surveillance and physical 
barriers along the border.

"We can add substantially to Mexico's efforts to bring stability to 
the border by working together to take the fight to the cartels," he said. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake