<CITE class=vcard>Obviously, just like all those nasty machine guns, and grenade launchers, and other multitude of weapons purchased in the USA and then smuggled into Mexico, now we have to outlaw these dangerous cars being smuggled down there and used as weapons to kill Mexican Police.....Evil Gringos, it's all your fault!!!</CITE> <CITE class=vcard>.</CITE> <CITE class=vcard>.</CITE> <CITE class=vcard></CITE> <CITE class=vcard>By ALICIA A. CALDWELL and ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writers Alicia A. Caldwell And Alexandra Olson, Associated Press Writers </CITE>– <ABBR class=timedate title=2010-07-17T14:49:48-0700>Sat Jul 17, 5:49 pm ET</ABBR> <!-- end .byline -->CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – The first successful car bombing by a drug cartel brings a new dimension of terror to a Mexican border region already shocked by random street battles, bodies dangling from bridges and highway checkpoints mounted by heavily armed criminals. The attack, seemingly lifted from an al-Qaida playbook, demonstrated once again that the cartels are a step ahead of both an already guarded public and federal police, who have recently taken over command from the military of the battle against traffickers in Ciudad Juarez, a city across the border from El Paso, Texas. "It's a lot like Iraq," said Claudio Arjon, who owns a restaurant near the scene of the attack and was surveying the damage from behind police lines Saturday morning. "Now, things are very different. It's very different. It's very ugly." People in Ciudad Juarez already live under siege. Like many restaurant owners, Arjon closes his business long before dark every day to avoid criminal gangs that threaten him and his clientele. Parents take separate cars to the same place so one can warn the other of dangers up ahead. Ambulance drivers and emergency room doctors come under fire from gang members trying to finish off wounded rivals. The car bomb, which killed at least three people Thursday, was the one thing nobody was expecting. It was a carefully planned attack designed to catch the extremely wary population and security forces off guard. A Street gang tied to the Juarez cartel lured federal officers and paramedics to the site of the bomb by dressing a bound, wounded man in a police uniform and calling in a false report of an officer shot, said Mayor Jose Reyes. Among those killed was a private doctor who rushed to the scene to help treat the wounded man. Among the injured was a local TV cameraman who had been filming the paramedics treating the man. Even in a country where beheadings and drive-by shootings are routine, they could not imagine the cartels would choose that vulnerable moment to strike. "In all my time working, nothing like this had ever happened to me," Channel 5 cameraman Luis Hernandez said in an interview with Milenio television. The Red Cross in Ciudad Juarez already instructs their personnel to wait until police cordon off the scene of an attack before treating the wounded — but that wasn't enough Thursday when the attackers clearly waited until everyone was in place before striking. Now, Red Cross officials said they were instructing their rescuers to look out for anything unusual — a parked car or an abandoned bag — that could be a bomb. "They have to think with their heads and not their hearts," said Gilberto Contreras, the president of the Red Cross in the city. Federal police said the bombing attack was in retaliation for the arrest earlier in the day of a top leader of the La Linea gang, which works for the Juarez drug cartel. Investigators were still trying to determine what type of explosives the attackers used. Brig. Gen. Eduardo Zarate, the commander of the regional military zone, said as much as 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of explosives might have been used. He said it might have been detonated remotely, adding that burned batteries connecting to a mobile phone were found at the scene. A senior U.S. law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the Mexican investigation is ongoing, said it is possible Mexican drug cartels were receiving bomb training from foreign groups — but it is just as likely they are learning on their own. "They could be looking at the Internet, and there are publications out there," he said. There have long been indications that the drug gangs were experimenting with explosives — and steadily improving their know-how. Gunmen have stolen explosive substances from transport vehicles and private companies. In a February 2009 raid on a U.S. firm in the northern state of Durango, masked gunmen stole 900 cartridges of Tovex water gel explosives. In March, an improvised explosive device went off without injuring anyone at a gas station in Cadereyta, a town in the northern state of Nuevo Leon. That bomb consisted of two large cylinders filled with nails and possibly black powder — a substance easily available on the black market — according to a U.S. Bomb Data Center report. A cell phone hard-wired to a cattle prod was found at the scene. The report said the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was helping investigate that blast and several other situations around Mexico possibly involving remotely controlled IEDs. While Mexican federal police have training in post-blast investigations, no security force in the country has experience with patrolling cities that could be mined with car bombs or roadside explosives. "There's no way the Mexicans are prepared for it," said Eric Olson, a senior associate at the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute. "I hate to say it but the cartels seem to have no limits to the violence and terrible things they are willing to do." Olson said the best way for federal police to confront this new threat would be to improve their intelligence capabilities — an area he called a serious weakness. "It requires operational intelligence. It requires 'We know this is going to happen or likely is going to happen in this neighborhood,'" he said. "That kind of refined intelligence is extremely difficult anywhere. But it doesn't seem to be available in a place like Ciudad Juarez." The cartels, on the other hand, "have an amazing intelligence capability," he said. "They are far ahead of law enforcement. All that keeps law enforcement from getting ahead of the curve." Mexican cartels — armed with billions of dollars and networks of informers among corrupt police forces — have long demonstrated their ability to target the highest-ranking security officials and government officials. Last month, cartel gunmen killed 12 federal police in the western state of Michoacan. A jailed suspect later described the carefully planned ambush to police, making it clear the gang knew exactly where the police patrol was going to be and when. And in another first, suspected cartel gunmen assassinated two candidates during campaigning last month for local and state elections, including the leading contender for governor of the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Never before had drug gangs killed such a high-ranking electoral candidate. Reyes, the Ciudad Juarez mayor, told The Associated Press that city authorities have "started changing all our protocols, to include bomb situations," he said. But there was little information from the federal government on what its next steps would be. Attorney General Arturo Chavez told a news conference Friday that the nature of the explosives used in the attack was still under investigation, and that there was "no evidence anywhere in the country of narco-terrorism." It didn't seem that way to many frightened Mexicans — or police. "It's terrorism," a federal police officer muttered at the bombing scene Saturday. Yuriria Sierra, a columnist for Excelsior Newspaper, questioned the attorney general's remarks: "With a population terrified to go out because they don't know if they will come home, we still can't talk about 'narco-terrorism?'" "We don't need Al-Qaida to live in fear," she wrote. ___ Alexandra Olson reported from Mexico City.
This just sickens me. Ben Raines was on to something in the Ashes series---just take the thugs out, no questions asked.
Bug out to the "tri-states" everybody! Interesting how such a random collection of people seem to have realitively similar backgrounds...most of us have read the same books, (butI guess this isn't by any means a "random" pool.
Nothing will happen until the Government locates these thug gangs, and takes them OUT - period. Problem is, too many in the Government owe allegiance to the gangs......
OMG!!! What are you saying Right Wing Domestic Terrorist? These are Proud Peaceful Hispanics with a heritage and history in the Southwest that prededes you stingin' Gringos. Gringo Americans go home!!!
It is a complex problem. Unfortunately for these thugs, the more attention they draw through violence, the more numbered their days.
Obviously I wasn't serious in my previous post. I have no problem with LEGAL IMMIGRANTS. I do have a problem with invasive illegal immigrants of all persuasions. They are an unacceptable burden on our economy. I have a problem with La Raza and other groups who do not want to assimilate with America, who want to wave the flag of their previous county and talk smack! Round them up for unlawful assembly, card the entire bunch, and transport all the non-citizens to the closest border crossing and kick their sorry butts south. I am sick and tired of too many BS unnecessary feel good laws, and the death of common sense. I expect enforcement of all Federal Laws that stand up to Constitutional review... . The following would be a good place to start in turning the clock backwards to a proper point. . THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!! A friend sent this along to me. I can't think of a reason to disagree. I am sending this to virtually everybody on my e-mail list and that includes conservatives, liberals, and everybody in between. Even though we disagree on a number of issues, I count all of you as friends. My friend and neighbor wants to promote a "Congressional Reform Act of 2010." It would contain eight provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I know many of you will say "this is impossible." Let me remind you, Congress has the lowest approval rating of any entity in Government. Now is the time when Americans will join together to reform Congress - the entity that represents us. We need to get a Senator to introduce this bill in the US Senate and a Representative to introduce a similar bill in the US House. These people will become American heroes. ********************************** Congressional Reform Act of 2010 1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below.. A. Two Six-year Senate terms B. Six Two-year House terms C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms 2. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. 3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. 4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work
