A perfect storm at the border
By Ricardo Sandoval
In the summer of 2004, from adjacent cells deep inside a maximum-security prison, two rival drug kingpins buried the hatchet and forged a partnership that lit a deadly fuse.
The resulting explosion of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has been stunning, even measured by the grisly standards of drug wars past. In towns like Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo, authorities can barely keep up with the body count. The carnage has given rise to a new worry as well: that a lawless border region might become a springboard for terrorist attacks on Americans.
The chaos will be an uninvited guest in Texas this week when President George W. Bush meets with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada. A friendly discussion of the North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to top the agenda. But violence and terrorism keep intruding on Bush's relationship with Fox. The former Texas governor entered office boasting of their friendship and talking of a more open border--but the events of 9/11 changed all that. More recently, Bush has renewed his calls for a guest worker program for Mexican immigrants. But that's going to be a tough sell in Congress and across America if the killing at the border doesn't stop--or at least slow down a bit.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lauded Mexico's efforts against illegal drugs and its cooperation in the war on terrorism as a "remarkable story," but that has not quieted fears that terrorists might take advantage. "Several al Qaeda leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," said Adm. James M. Loy, then U.S. deputy secretary for homeland security, in congressional testimony last month.
Setbacks. Heightened fears of terrorism are the latest in a string of setbacks for Fox, who until recently enjoyed worldwide praise for standing up to the drug traffickers. Fox jailed several capos and dozens of lieutenants and had even made gains in reversing the seemingly systemic corruption that had long bedeviled federal police.
But the jailhouse meetings of drug lords Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas set off a series of bloody attacks that have sullied Fox's record. Arellano Felix and Cardenas plotted their alliance while supposedly in the deep freeze of Mexico's premier lockup, La Palma, high in the mountains west of Mexico City. They zeroed in on their common enemies--traffickers Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, Ismael Zambada, and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who make up the leadership of the Juarez cartel. While Arellano Felix and Cardenas stewed in jail, the Juarez organization had become Mexico's most powerful drug gang.
After the jailhouse meeting, brothers of Carrillo Fuentes and Guzman were gunned down. One of the assaults was a hit in the same La Palma prison. That incident, and rumors the drug lords were plotting to break out of the prison, led Fox to take drastic action. In mid-January, he deployed hundreds of Army troops to take back control of La Palma from the drug lords. Then, after six employees of a federal prison in Matamoros were slain later that month, Fox deployed more soldiers and federal police officers along a 200-mile stretch of the border. In February, a member of Fox's travel staff was arrested for allegedly passing information to a drug organization.
A recent State Department report says that drug trafficking and related crimes "pose serious direct threats" to Mexico's national security. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the new violence is the specter of the Zetas, an elite corps of former Mexican Army commandos who have switched sides and sold their services to drug trafficker Cardenas. The Zetas are now believed to have taken dozens of lives--both Mexican and American. The Dallas Morning News recently reported that the Zetas were suspected of orchestrating at least three recent murders in Dallas. In January, Zeta activity led the U.S. State Department to issue a travel warning about the "deteriorating security situation" on the Mexican side of the border. Even college students on spring break were warned about partying too hard in Matamoros, home turf of Cardenas's Gulf cartel.
"Exercise some caution," said Antonio Garza, U.S. ambassador to Mexico. "If you haven't been to the border in years, this isn't the same border." In light of recent events, that seemed a bit of an understatement.
By Ricardo Sandoval
In the summer of 2004, from adjacent cells deep inside a maximum-security prison, two rival drug kingpins buried the hatchet and forged a partnership that lit a deadly fuse.
The resulting explosion of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has been stunning, even measured by the grisly standards of drug wars past. In towns like Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo, authorities can barely keep up with the body count. The carnage has given rise to a new worry as well: that a lawless border region might become a springboard for terrorist attacks on Americans.
The chaos will be an uninvited guest in Texas this week when President George W. Bush meets with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada. A friendly discussion of the North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to top the agenda. But violence and terrorism keep intruding on Bush's relationship with Fox. The former Texas governor entered office boasting of their friendship and talking of a more open border--but the events of 9/11 changed all that. More recently, Bush has renewed his calls for a guest worker program for Mexican immigrants. But that's going to be a tough sell in Congress and across America if the killing at the border doesn't stop--or at least slow down a bit.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lauded Mexico's efforts against illegal drugs and its cooperation in the war on terrorism as a "remarkable story," but that has not quieted fears that terrorists might take advantage. "Several al Qaeda leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," said Adm. James M. Loy, then U.S. deputy secretary for homeland security, in congressional testimony last month.
Setbacks. Heightened fears of terrorism are the latest in a string of setbacks for Fox, who until recently enjoyed worldwide praise for standing up to the drug traffickers. Fox jailed several capos and dozens of lieutenants and had even made gains in reversing the seemingly systemic corruption that had long bedeviled federal police.
But the jailhouse meetings of drug lords Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas set off a series of bloody attacks that have sullied Fox's record. Arellano Felix and Cardenas plotted their alliance while supposedly in the deep freeze of Mexico's premier lockup, La Palma, high in the mountains west of Mexico City. They zeroed in on their common enemies--traffickers Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, Ismael Zambada, and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who make up the leadership of the Juarez cartel. While Arellano Felix and Cardenas stewed in jail, the Juarez organization had become Mexico's most powerful drug gang.
After the jailhouse meeting, brothers of Carrillo Fuentes and Guzman were gunned down. One of the assaults was a hit in the same La Palma prison. That incident, and rumors the drug lords were plotting to break out of the prison, led Fox to take drastic action. In mid-January, he deployed hundreds of Army troops to take back control of La Palma from the drug lords. Then, after six employees of a federal prison in Matamoros were slain later that month, Fox deployed more soldiers and federal police officers along a 200-mile stretch of the border. In February, a member of Fox's travel staff was arrested for allegedly passing information to a drug organization.
A recent State Department report says that drug trafficking and related crimes "pose serious direct threats" to Mexico's national security. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the new violence is the specter of the Zetas, an elite corps of former Mexican Army commandos who have switched sides and sold their services to drug trafficker Cardenas. The Zetas are now believed to have taken dozens of lives--both Mexican and American. The Dallas Morning News recently reported that the Zetas were suspected of orchestrating at least three recent murders in Dallas. In January, Zeta activity led the U.S. State Department to issue a travel warning about the "deteriorating security situation" on the Mexican side of the border. Even college students on spring break were warned about partying too hard in Matamoros, home turf of Cardenas's Gulf cartel.
"Exercise some caution," said Antonio Garza, U.S. ambassador to Mexico. "If you haven't been to the border in years, this isn't the same border." In light of recent events, that seemed a bit of an understatement.
