Mexico: 13 Dead in Massacre at Ciudad Juarez Party

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen stormed two homes and massacred 13 young partygoers in the latest large-scale attack in this violent border city, even as a new government strategy seeks to restore order with social programs and massive police deployments.

Attackers in two vehicles pulled up to the houses in a lower-middle-class neighborhood late Friday and opened fire on about three dozen youths attending a party. The dead identified so far were 16 to 25 years old, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said Saturday in a statement. Fifteen were wounded, including a 9-year-old boy...

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Texas National Guardsman Slain in Mexico
Two Men Killed on a Street in the Violent Border City of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Guardsman from El Paso, Texas

(AP) Authorities say a 21-year-old Texas National Guard soldier was one of two men killed on a street in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Spokesman Arturo Sandoval of the Chihuahua state attorney general's office says family members identified the soldier as 21-year-old Jose Gil Hernandez of El Paso...

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20-year-old woman student is police chief of violent Mexican town

Indo-Asian News Service, Updated: October 20, 2010 11:37 IST

Mexico City: A 20-year-old criminology student, the only candidate for the position, was designated as police chief in the violence-plagued town of Guadalupe Distrito Bravo, Mexican media reported Tuesday.

Marisol Valles Garcia took charge on Monday of security in the town, population 10,000, on the US border. The community is around 80 km east of Ciudad Juarez, itself regarded as the most violent city in Mexico.

The former mayor of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, Jesus Manuel Lara Rodriguez, was killed on June 19 at his home in Ciudad Juarez, after receiving death threats.

Valles Garcia said she will not have to fight the drug gangs, which is the responsibility of other law enforcement agencies. Instead, she will pursue preventive programmes in neighbourhoods and schools, and she will be in charge of reclaiming public spaces for the community.

Inside Mexico's Drug War, Americans Allege Abuse

Julian Cardona for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Huckabee, left, and Carlos Quijas, right, say Mexican soldiers planted two suitcases of marijuana in their truck, then abused them during interrogation, allegations denied by the army.

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—Two Americans were driving back to El Paso, Texas, last December after an afternoon across the border in Ciudad Juárez. A few blocks from the border, they were surrounded by Mexican army trucks and pulled from their Dodge Ram.

Violence escalates in the drug wars in Mexico as a car bomb set off by a cell phone kills at least three people. Deborah Lutterbeck reports. Video Courtesy of Reuters.

Mexico's military says it found two suitcases full of marijuana in the cab of the pickup truck. Two soldiers later testified that they drove the two Americans to a military compound on the outskirts of town, questioned them briefly, then turned them over to civilian authorities. The Americans were charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell.

Those two men—Shohn Huckabee, 23 years old, and Carlos Quijas, 36—are being held in a Ciudad Juárez jail. They tell a different story about what happened that night. They say Mexican soldiers planted the marijuana in their truck. When they arrived at the military base, they say, they were blindfolded, tied up, hit with rifle butts, shocked with electricity and threatened with death...

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Four dead in Juarez bombing

Juarez-- People in Juarez are recovering from a car bomb that killed four Thursday night. The victims include two federal agents, an ambulance worker and a doctor who was in the area when the bomb went off.

Tonight, we have learned that it was a car bomb that was detonated with the same kind of sophistication that is used by terrorist groups like Hezbollah...

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Deadly Mexican drug gang attack was 'car bomb'

[From BBC News]

Investigators in Mexico say a deadly attack by suspected drug cartel members in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez was a car bomb set off by mobile phone.

It is believed to be the first attack of its kind since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006, promising to curb powerful drugs gangs.

Three people including two police officers died in Thursday's attack.

Police said the blast was retaliation for the arrest of a leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero.

La Linea is part of the Juarez drug cartel.

"There were 10kg (22lb) of explosives, activated from a distance by a cell phone," Enrique Torres, a spokesman for the army in Ciudad Juarez, said.

At least 16 other people were injured in the attack, police said.

Ciudad Juarez is just across the border from El Paso, Texas. It has long been the battleground for cartels fighting for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes into the US.

More than 7,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico so far this year. Almost 25,000 have died in the past three and a half years, according to figures released by the office of Attorney General Arturo Chavez on Friday.

[Webmaster - Compare this with the U.S. casualties in Iraq since 2003: 4,414]

Mr Chavez said the rising figures demonstrated that the cartels were under pressure from the government crackdown.

He said 75,000 weapons had been decommissioned in the same period and 78,000 people had been detained in drug trafficking operations.

President Calderon has despatched thousands of troops to regain control of areas of the country long dominated by powerful cartels.

New Adversary In U.S. Drug War: Contract Killers For Mexican Cartels

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- A cross-border drug gang born in the prison cells of Texas has evolved into a sophisticated paramilitary killing machine that U.S. and Mexican officials suspect is responsible for thousands of assassinations here, including the recent ambush and slaying of three people linked to the U.S. consulate.

The heavily tattooed Barrio Azteca gang members have long operated across the border in El Paso, dealing drugs and stealing cars. But in Ciudad Juarez, the organization now specializes in contract killing for the Juarez drug cartel. According to U.S. law enforcement officers, it may have been involved in as many as half of the 2,660 killings in the city in the past year.

Officials on both sides of the border have watched as the Aztecas honed their ability to locate targets, stalk them and finally strike in brazen ambushes involving multiple chase cars, coded radio communications, coordinated blocking maneuvers and disciplined firepower by masked gunmen in body armor. Afterward, the assassins vanish, back to safe houses in the Juarez barrios or across the bridge to El Paso.

"Within their business of killing, they have surveillance people, intel people and shooters. They have a degree of specialization," said David Cuthbertson, special agent in charge of the FBI's El Paso division. "They work day in and day out, with a list of people to kill, and they get proficient at it."...

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Gunmen Kill 1, Kidnap 4 At Mexican Wedding

Gunmen stormed into a church in the middle of a wedding ceremony in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Friday, kidnapping the groom and three others, and killing one before fleeing, state prosecutors told CNN Saturday.

"It's unclear if this was gang or drug related," Chihuahua State Attorney
General's Office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said, adding the incident is still
under investigation.

The shooting victim, described as a male in his early 20s, was shot in the back in the church parking lot, Gonzalez said.

Local reports say he was fleeing from the scene when he was shot. The groom, his uncle, brother and best man were kidnapped.

Ciudad Juarez is the most violent city in Mexico, with more than 2,600 drug-related deaths in 2009.

At least 870 people have been killed in Juarez this year, according to local reports.

A report released in April by the Mexican government said Chihuahua state is the country's hardest-hit state by drug violence, with 6,757 people killed since the start of the drug war at the end of 2006.

7 Mexican Police Officers Killed In Ciudad Juarez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Gunmen ambushed two police vehicles at a busy intersection in this drug- and violence-plagued city, killing seven officers and a 17-year-old boy who was passing by, authorities said.

Six of the police officers killed in Friday's attack were federal, and one was a local police woman, said Enrique Torres Valadez, a spokesman for the state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located. Two local police officers were in critical condition.

Authorities said the police officers had stopped to talk to a street vendor who flagged them down for help when gunmen opened fire from behind their pickup patrol trucks. The assailants fled in three vehicles.

Investigators said they don't know why the officers were shot, although they don't believe they were targeted because of any recent arrests they had made.

No one has been arrested but police said they have recovered two of the three cars used in the shooting.

Hours after the attack, a painted message directed to top federal police commanders and claiming responsibility for the attack appeared on a wall in downtown Ciudad Juarez. It was apparently signed by La Linea gang, the enforcement arm of the Juarez drug cartel. The Juarez cartel has been locked in a bloody turf battle with the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

"This will happen to you ... for being with El Chapo Guzman and to all the dirtbags who support him. Sincerely, La Linea," the message read. The authenticity of the message could not be independently verified.

Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million across from El Paso, Texas, is one of the world's deadliest cities, and a two-year turf battle between drug cartels has left more than 5,000 people dead...

Cartels Continue To Fight For Control Of Juarez Drug Trade

EL PASO -- The violence sparked by a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels is not nearing its end, U.S. officials in El Paso said.

Countering a recent media report, U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, said Friday that he does not believe the Sinaloa cartel now controls all of Juárez's drug market.

The Associated Press on Friday reported anonymous U.S. intelligence sources saying Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who leads the Sinaloa cartel, is winning Mexico's drug war. The story does not say the Sinaloa cartel is winning over Mexico's federal forces, but over Vicente Carrillo Fuentes' Juárez cartel.

FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said the Sinaloa cartel appears to have control of the drug trade...

Mexico's Drug Wars Fuel Northern Flight

(CBS) Luis Aril Anzures is 29, and a successful restaurateur in El Paso, Texas.

But 11 months ago he lived across the border in Juarez, Mexico - one of the most dangerous cities on earth, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker. One day driving home, three cars surrounded him.

"People came out of the cars with AK-47s, pointing at me, told me to get out of the car, made me kneel on the street," Anzures said. "I thought I was going to die."

At just that moment soldiers drove up and saved him. That night, Luis and his family fled to El Paso, one of the safest cities in the U.S. - just 13 murders last year. They now have a thriving new restaurant and a safe new life.

"We love it here," Anzures said.

He's part of a growing number of people fleeing north to safety across the Rio Grande.

The port is one of the busiest on the border, 23 million crossings back and forth a year. But in the last two years, as many as 80,000 people from Juarez have crossed into El Paso -- and not gone back...

Operation Knockdown: FBI Raids Texas Gang

WASHINGTON — FBI agents and police swooped Thursday on suspected members of a gang thought to be involved in the slaying of three people linked to the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, an official said.

Some 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers launched raids early Thursday in southern New Mexico and around the Texas border city of El Paso, targeting suspected members of the Barrio Azteca gang, Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told AFP.

The raids, called "Operation Knockdown", were part of "an ongoing effort to generate leads and intelligence regarding the investigation into Saturday's murders" in Mexico's notorious crime capital, Ciudad Juarez, Payne said...

FBI In Mexico To Investigate US Consulate Killings

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) – US agents joined a probe into the brazen weekend killings at an American consulate in Mexico's bloodiest city, highlighting rampant violence that prompted expressions of concern from both governments.

Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez to probe the fatal shootings of two American and a Mexican with ties to the US consulate -- the first such attack in recent memory on American diplomatic personnel.

Mexican authorities blamed the drive-by murders of the American employee of the US consulate, her husband and the husband of a Mexican consular employee on "the Aztecas," a gang linked to the powerful Juarez drug cartel...

Mexico Gunmen Kill American Consulate Staff

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen in the drug war-plagued Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to the local U.S. consulate, an attack U.S. President Barack Obama said "outraged" him.

An American woman working at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, and her U.S. husband were fatally shot by suspected drug gang hitmen in broad daylight on Saturday as they left a consulate social event, U.S. and Mexican officials told Reuters.

A Mexican man married to another consulate employee was killed around the same time in another part of the city after he and his wife left the same event, a U.S. official said...