Thread: 'Violence will intensify,' Calderón warns

'Violence will intensify,' Calderón warns

Posted: Saturday, August 28, 2010 12:00 am
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

REYNOSA, Mexico - A car explodes outside a police station, another outside a television station. A gang is suspected of massacring 72 migrants. A prosecutor investigating those deaths suddenly disappears.

Mexico's drug cartels seem to be adopting the tactics of war zones half a world away.

The violence appears to have contributed to fewer migrants crossing the border into the U.S., officials say, as they have to traverse some of Mexico's most dangerous territory to get to Texas. Mexican officials, meanwhile, warn that there likely will be more in the coming months.

"Violence will persist and even intensify," President Felipe Calderón said at a forum on security where he vowed he would not back down.

If authorities confirm the explosions were car bombs, it would mean a total of four such explosives have been used this year in Mexico - a new and frightening tactic that officials say the cartels are using in the escalating drug war.

No drug gangs claimed responsibility for Friday's violence in the northern state of Tamaulipas. A survivor of the massacre, however, said the killers identified themselves as Zetas, a group of former Mexican army special-forces soldiers who are now a lethal drug gang that has taken to extorting migrants.

Kidnappings and attacks on government security patrols are rampant in the highways surrounding San Fernando, where the bodies of the 72 Central and South American migrants were discovered on a ranch Tuesday, bound, blindfolded and slumped against a wall.

The car blasts happened less than 45 minutes apart in Ciudad Victoria, the Tamaulipas capital, the Attorney General's Office said. The first car exploded in front of the offices of the Televisa network, the second in front of transit-police offices. There were no injuries.

Investigators have identified 31 of the migrants, whose remains were taken to Reynosa, a city across the border from McAllen, Texas. Those identified include 14 Hondurans, 12 Salvadorans, four Guatemalans and one Brazilian.

The prosecutor, Roberto Jaime Suarez, disappeared Wednesday in San Fernando, where the bodies of the migrants were found, the state Attorney General's Office said. A transit police officer in the town is also missing.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/ ... 47713.html

From June 2010.

Hezbollah, Hamas Raise Money for ‘Terrorist Activities’ From Drug Trade in South America, Congressional Research Service Says
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
By Edwin Mora

Members of a Hamas-allied militant group train in Gaza City on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009. (AP Photo)(CNSNews.com) - Amid growing concern about the illicit drug trade across the U.S.-Mexico border, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have been linked to South American drug trafficking organizations–and the money Hezbollah and Hamas make from narco-trafficking is used to finance their organizations, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS).

“International terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have also reportedly raised funding for their terrorist activities through linkages formed with DTOs in South America, particularly those operating in the tri-border area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina,â€

"Violence will persist and even intensify," President Felipe Calderón said at a forum on security where he vowed he would not back down.

Then you and other corrupt officials should stop taking paymernts from the cartels. Enact the death penalty.

We can he;p by facilitating the return of your citizens, living here illegally, so they can defend their beloved mexico. I'm sure they'd love to march on the drug cartels carrying their beloved mexican flag. They have no problem marhing with it in the US.

They will be bursting with pride marching and fighting for mexico...in mexico.

Damned be the GATT and NAFTA agreements.

All the global investors are PISSED and running as fast as they can for our borders.

Trying to recoup their losses by rifleling the very people that had NOTHING to do with it while the WH watches.

What happened with all the money Obama gave Calderon to help with the drug cartels? It doesnt matter. The whole world could give them millions of dollars and it still wouldnt stop the drug cartels from ruling Mexico.

The Mexican government is either corrupt, incompetent or both and yet our representatives see fit to allow their president to lecture us before Congress.