Thread: Attacks against Border Patrol increases 22 to 37%

TRANSLATED FROM:

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/07/15/i ... e=007n2pol

Attacks by Drug smuggling groups against Border Patrol Agents increase 22 to 37%

The leader of the Border Patrol, David Aguilar, denounced that there has been an increase between 22% and 37% the aggressions commited by the drug cartels against border agents in the past two years. He considered that is a matter of an "escalation" of violence in the border between the two countries for the fight of the territory where these criminal groups "previously operated with impunity".

He detailed that the cities where more of the violence has increased are San Diego, close to Tijuana, and Tucson, in Arizona, that limits Mexico with Sonora, for which during next week they will be set in motion an operation to reinforce security in those states.

In a videoconference carried out in the U.S. embassy in Mexico, Aguilar explained that these cartels maintain a fight against the Border Patrol by maintaining the control of that territory.

He added that before Border Patrol agents only took charge of watching over undocumented migrants and human smugglers. Nevertheless, now they also have to fight against criminal groups of drug-traffickers that have proliferated in the region, which has caused greater number of attacks against his agents.

"The reason that we see is that the control that we have had at the border has created a situation in which the smugglers and the criminal organizations try to fight for the territory where they operated with impunity", he exposed.

In the area, "the drug traffickers and the smugglers have mixed into one", and even in some occasions they operate together, which has complicated security, above all in states of Arizona, one of the states most used by migrant and criminals.

He explained that an important fall in the number of detained immigrants and in the quantity of dead at the border has been seen due to the fact that there is greater presence of Border Patrol agents, which increased from 11 thousand 500 to 16 thousand 700 in the last two years.

Likewise, he added, that he has been given better instruments and more technology to support security operations. Herecognized, nevertheless, that the 272 dead people –of which 141 were of Mexican origin– in the border from September till this date represent "an unacceptable figure".

Milenio (Mexico City) 7/14/08 -Notimex news agency-

[i]- (Note: An article headlined “Organized crime’s aggression against the Border Patrol on the increaseâ€