Tuesday, January 24, 2006
INVASION USA
Texas border
standoff with Mexican military
Foreign
personnel mount machine guns on U.S. side while helping drug smugglers
Posted: January 24, 2006
2:50 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Texas law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents engaged in an
armed standoff with Mexican military personnel and drug smugglers just
inside the United States along the Rio Grande yesterday afternoon.
According to a report in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario,
Calif., both Texas law enforcement and the FBI stated nearly 30 American
agents were part of the incident.
Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department
told the paper Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be
thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States.
Border Patrol agents called for backup after seeing that Mexican Army
troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards
inside the U.S. border near Neely's Crossing, about 50 miles east of El
Paso.
Doyal said Hudspeth County deputies and Texas Highway patrol officers
arrived shortly afterward.
"It's been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident
with Mexico that it's been going on for years," Doyal told the Bulletin.
"When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants
to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us."
Andrea Simmons, a spokeswoman with the FBI's El Paso office, confirmed
the incident, saying, "Bad guys in three vehicles ended up on the border.
People with Humvees, who appeared to be with the Mexican army, were
involved with the three vehicles in getting them back across."
A Cadillac Escalade reportedly stolen from El Paso was captured, and
U.S. officers found 1,477 pounds of marijuana inside.
The Mexican soldiers set fire to one of the Humvees stuck in the river,
Doyal indicated.
Doyal emphasized Border Patrol agents and county deputies are not
equipped for battle with military personnel.
"Our government has to do something," he told the Bulletin. "It's not
the immigrants coming over for jobs we're worried about. It's the
smugglers, Mexican military and the national threat to our borders that
we're worried about."
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security reported 216
incursions by Mexican soldiers during the past 10 years.
As
WorldNetDaily reported, federal officials last week said Border Patrol
and other federal agents working chronic drug-smuggling routes along the
U.S. boundary with Mexico could be targets for retaliation by well-armed
cartels from south of the Rio Grande, after a new enforcement push has
dramatically curbed the importation of contraband.
"I do think we have to be prepared for the fact that as we press hard
on these criminal organizations, some of them will want to fight back,"
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters.
Mexican officials last week denied their military was making incursions
into the United States.
