Woman mayor shows her horrific scars after surviving two assassination attempts by Mexican gangs

Daily Mail Online

Baring her mutilated body for the camera, Maria Santos Gorrostieta shows the horrific results of two assassination attempts by Mexican criminals

As the mayor of the town of Tiquicheo, she has become a key target for drug gangs who have turned the country into a grotesquely violent narco-state.

But despite being scarred physically and mentally by the attacks, the extraordinarily brave Mrs Gorrostieta remains defiant.

'I wanted to show you my wounds because I'm not ashamed that my body is mutilated like this,' she said.

Injuries: Maria Santos Gorrostieta, the mayor of the Mexican town of Tiquicheo shows her horrific injuries after surviving two assassination attempts

Brave: The mayor said some people had even doubted that she was attacked

'It is the result of shameful acts which have marked my life and the lives of my children. But I am not ashamed.

'There are some that have said I made these attacks up. But I did not and now I show the physical proof to those who have doubted me.'...

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Entire police force in Los Ramones, Mexico quits after gunmen attack headquarters

Bravo/Reuters

A policeman walks among bullet-riddled patrol trucks after an attack at a police station in the town of Los Ramones. Gunmen shot more than 1,000 rounds and launched six grenades at the building.

The entire police force in a small Mexican town abruptly resigned Tuesday after its new headquarters was viciously attacked by suspected drug cartel gunmen.

All 14 police officers in Los Ramones, a rural town in northern Mexico, fled the force in terror after gunmen fired more than 1,000 bullets and flung six grenades at their headquarters on Monday night.

No one was injured in the attack. Mayor Santos Salinas Garza told local media that the officers resigned because of the incident.

The gunmen’s 20-minute shooting spree destroyed six police vehicles and left the white and orange police station pocked with bullet holes, the Financial Times reported.

The station had been inaugurated just three days earlier...

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Two car bombs explode in northern Mexico; no casualties

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (Reuters) – Two car bombs exploded in northern Mexico early on Friday, days after marines found the bodies of 72 people gunned down in the country's escalating war with powerful drug cartels.

The blasts, the second and third modest-sized bombs planted in a vehicle this month in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the northern Gulf state of Tamaulipas, and the fourth in Mexico since late July, caused no casualties but damaged buildings.

The attacks came the same day officials discovered the body of a police officer investigating the massacre of dozens of migrants in the latest attack linked to Mexico's drug war.

"I'm told of the explosion of two car bombs here in the state, one in the offices of local traffic police and the other in the installations of Televisa," Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez told local radio, referring to Mexico's top broadcaster...

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Gunbattles paralyze Mexican city across from Texas

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – Late-night gunbattles with gangs who forced citizens from their cars and used the vehicles to block streets paralyzed a border city, sound of gunfire alarmed Texans on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande.

The Nuevo Laredo city government posted messages on Facebook warning citizens to stay indoors as the battles erupted at several intersections in the city across from Laredo, Texas.

Frightened people on the U.S. side of the border called emergency dispatchers after hearing the gunfire, Laredo police spokesman Joe Baeza said Thursday. But he said there was no spillover violence.

"We were getting reports from people who live on the river's edge that they could hear gunfire and explosions from the Mexico side," Baeza said.

"We didn't have any incidents on the American side. It's hard for people to understand who don't live here," he added. "They're not Vikings, they're not going to invade us, it doesn't work that way."

Nuevo Laredo city officials said they could not immediately confirm witness reports that several gunmen were killed.

Gangs used stolen cars and buses to block several main avenues in the city across from Laredo, Texas. Several residents called local newspapers to report thefts...

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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.

Mexican 'Assassin Teams' May Target U.S. Law Enforcement, DHS Warns

Law enforcement officers in west Texas are on guard following an alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security warning of retaliatory killings for a recent crackdown on the Barrio Azteca gang.

AP March 30: Police officers escort Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, right, to a court hearing in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Law enforcement officers in west Texas are on guard following an alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security warning of retaliatory killings for a recent crackdown on the Barrio Azteca gang.

David Cuthbertson, special agent in charge of the FBI's El Paso division, said the paramilitary-style gang has an "open policy" to kill its rivals and may turn its sights toward local law enforcement officers.

"[They] are extremely cold-blooded and aggressive," Cuthbertson told FoxNews.com. "The killings are done really without thought and any kind of remorse."

Citing uncorroborated information, Homeland Security issued an Officer Safety Alert on March 22, advising lawmen in the El Paso sector to vary their routes to and from work and to wear body armor while on duty. The alert also suggested that officers' relatives pay closer attention to unusual activity in the area.

"The Barrio Azteca gang may issue a 'green light' authorizing the attempted murder of [law enforcement officers] in the El Paso area," the alert read. "Due to the threat, it is recommended that [law enforcement officers] take extra safety precautions." The Barrio Azteca gang, which formed in Texas prisons in the 1980s, is a brother organization to the Aztecas gang in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the epicenter of Mexico's violent drug war, Cuthbertson said.

He said members of the gang's "assassination teams" are thought to work for very small monthly fees. One official from the Drug Enforcement Administration has said Aztecas have been known to kill for as little as $100. Since 2006, drug violence across Mexico has claimed nearly 18,000 lives.

Eduardo "Tablas" Ravelo, the reputed boss of Barrio Azteca members living in Juarez, remains on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his arrest. He and other Barrio Azteca gang members serve as hitmen for the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug trafficking organization -- also known as the Juarez cartel -- and are responsible for several killings, according to the FBI.

The DHS warning came just days after hundreds of Barrio Azteca gang members were interviewed by officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and FBI following the murders of three people linked to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez on March 13. More than 200 officers from at least 18 agencies participated in "Operation Knockdown," which resulted in at least 26 felony arrests of alleged Azteca members.

The Barrio Aztecas are believed to be aligned with the Juarez cartel against the Sinaloa drug cartel for control of the billion-dollar drug-trafficking routes through the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez corridor. Since 2008, the Aztecas have been rivals of the Artistic Assassins, or "Double A's," who serve as contract killers for the Sinaloa cartel, Cuthbertson said.

"They're very organized," he said. "They have a code they go by and certainly a communication network inside and outside of the prison system."

Cuthbertson said Barrio Azteca gang members have been found in central Texas towns like Odessa and Midland, as well as in southern Mexico.

Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, an Azteca sergeant, said last week in a purported confession that his gang was hunting for the vehicle of a Texas jail guard who was killed in one of two SUVs attacked in the March 13 shootings that killed El Paso jail officer Arthur Redelfs, his wife Lesley Enriquez, who worked as an employee of the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, and Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of another consulate worker.

Valles de la Rosa, according to his statement, was instructed by Azteca brass to target Redelfs due to alleged harsh treatment of Azteca members in jail. Valles de la Rosa was ordered last week to be held for trial on weapons charges for allegedly carrying a 9mm pistol when he was arrested.

Ron Martin, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers' Association, said that while he takes any threat to the law enforcement community seriously, he won't change his habits.

"It's not the first time a gang has put a hit out on El Paso police officers," Martin said. "Our guys are very highly trained, so they're pretty well prepared for just about anything. For them to come out and attack a law enforcement officer in the United States would be detrimental to their business."

Martin called the March 13 killings "unacceptable" and said he felt the killings were no less shocking because they occurred in Mexico, just across the border, rather than in El Paso or elsewhere in Texas.

"It doesn't matter if it actually happens across an imaginary dotted line, you're killing people for money," he said. "It's unacceptable."

Asked if he had changed his daily routines since the DHS alert, Martin said: "It's not like we're doing anything different because a bunch of murderers -- I call 'em terrorists -- are threatening us. Personally, I don't do anything differently than I did before. We're not changing the way we do our job because of them."

Mexicans Facing Drug War Violence Could Seek Political Asylum In The U.S.

The violent drug wars in Mexico could upend efforts to curb illegal immigrants.

The spreading violence of the drug wars along the Mexican border may have one unintended consequence. It could upend efforts to curb illegal immigrants by giving Mexican border-crossers a tool they never had before: a valid claim for political asylum.

For decades, immigrants coming from Mexico were denied asylum because Mexico was a stable and relatively peaceful democracy. But that is changing now.

Last week, at least 30 Mexicans from the town of El Porvenir walked to the border crossing post at Fort Hancock, Texas, and asked for political asylum. Ordinarily, their claim would be denied as groundless, and they would be turned back. Instead, they were taken to El Paso, where they expect to have their cases heard.

No one doubts that they have a strong claim. Their town on the Mexican side of the border is under siege by one or more drug cartels battling for control of the key border crossing. According to Mike Doyle, the chief deputy sheriff of Hudspeth County, Texas, one of the cartels has ordered all residents of the town of 10,000 to abandon the city within the next month...

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...

Spring Break: Booze, Babes, and Bodyguards

Drug-Related Violence in Mexico Prompts Officials to Warn Students Against Heading South of the Border

With thousands of American teenagers and college students revving up for spring break, the government and some universities have a message for those looking to venture south of the border: Be careful...

Mexican Drug Cartels In Border War

Formerly peaceful area descends into murder, abduction and terror as gangs break truce

REYNOSA, MEXICO: This city and others near the eastern end of the U.S. border escaped the worst of Mexico's bloody drug war for years, but now the bodies are piling up, several journalists are reportedly missing or dead and once-busy streets are empty after dark.

The crumbling of an alliance between two Mexican drug gangs has plunged the 200-mile stretch of border into violence, raising fears of a new front in the drug war, a U.S. anti-drug official said.

In Mexican border cities stretching from Matamoros near the Gulf to Nuevo Laredo, gunfire has been heard almost daily, and at least 49 people were killed in drug-related violence in less than six weeks...

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...