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Tuesday, September 6, 2005 · Last updated 5:20 p.m. PT

Mexican army convoys bringing aid to U.S.

By MARK STEVENSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican army aid convoy set out for the U.S. border Tuesday, carrying water treatment plants, mobile kitchens and supplies to feed the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Large Mexican flags were taped to many of the 35 green-painted Mexican army trucks and tractor trailers as they rumbled northward, in what apparently will be the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846.

The trucks, carrying 195 unarmed soldiers, officers and specialists, were expected to arrive in Laredo, Texas, sometime Wednesday. From there they are to proceed to Houston, where they will apparently be used to produce water and hot meals.

The convoy included two mobile kitchens that can feed 7,000 people each per day, three flatbed trucks carrying mobile water treatment plants, and 15 trailers of bottled water, blankets and applesauce.

It also includes military engineers, doctors and nurses.



In 1846, Mexican troops briefly advanced just north of the Rio Grande in Texas, which had then recently joined the United States. Mexico, however, did not then recognize the Rio Grande as the U.S. border.

The two countries quickly became mired in the Mexican-American War, which led to the loss of half of Mexico's territory in 1848.

Mexico sent a squadron of pilots to train in the United States in the 1940s, but they served outside the United States - in the Philippines - in World War II.

In 1916, the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa led a group of irregular fighters in a brief raid into Columbus, N.M., in what is considered the last battle against foreign forces on U.S. soil.

Mexico was planning another 12-vehicle aid convoy to leave Tuesday or Wednesday and already has a Mexican navy ship steaming toward the Mississippi coast with rescue vehicles and helicopters.

Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez has said Mexico is setting up consular offices in trailers around the disaster zone to help some of the estimated 140,000 Mexicans who live in the region, 10,000 of them in New Orleans.

In addition, help was offered by a search-and-rescue group called "topos" - which translates as "moles" - organized by youths who dug through collapsed buildings after Mexico City's 1985 earthquake.