http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0517attack.html
. Mexico violence worrying both sides of border Sean Holstege The Arizona Republic May. 17, 2007 12:00 AM A pre-dawn attack by dozens of heavily armed commandos in the mining town of Cananea, about 20 miles south of the Arizona border, left at least four local police dead Wednesday. Police tracked the group into nearby hills and killed 15 armed assailants in a gunbattle later in the day. A police officer who had been seized earlier in the day was freed during the gunbattle, along with Cananea residents who had been abducted, Sonora state police said. Hours after the attack, the latest in a wave of border violence associated with drug cartels, Sonora's governor revealed that police in Cananea and Agua Prieta were being investigated involving corruption allegations. He called for more help from Mexico's intelligence agencies. Early Wednesday, 40 gunmen in a convoy of 15 trucks kidnapped several police officials and two civilians, a woman at a gas station and someone inside a hotel, according to official accounts. Hours later, officials found four police shot dead near the highway to Bacoachi. About 50 bullet casings surrounded their corpses. Officials also found two officers severely beaten but alive. The latest attack left officials on both sides of the border worried. "This is just another stark reminder of how violent the drug traffickers have become," said Ramona Sanchez, Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman. "Are they being more brazen and ruthless? Yes." Sanchez said the escalating violence south of the border is a reaction by drug cartels to a military crackdown by President Felipe Calderón. The day before the Cananea attack, Calderón met with Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours. The two discussed security in the smuggler-infested border state. Bours said Wednesday that he asked for more help from Mexico's intelligence agencies. Bours said he also had asked Mexico's attorney general to investigate the Cananea Police Department for suspected ties to drug smuggling rings. He said he didn't believe events in Cananea represented an attack on the police as an institution but rather was an internal dispute between the cartels and officers linked to organized crime. Authorities have re-established order in the small down, Bours said. He is scheduled to meet with Mexico's interior secretary today about the security problem. The pre-dawn attack came two days after gangsters in Mexico City ambushed and killed Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix, who was recently appointed to lead an investigative unit that analyzes data about the cartels. Also Monday, a high-ranking police officer was tortured, shot and killed in Tijuana, bringing the number of people killed in drug-related violence this year to between 800 and 1,000, estimates show. An estimated 2,000 people were slain in Mexico's drug wars in 2006. Increasingly, that violence is becoming more gruesome, as the rival Sinaloa and Gulf cartels battle over smuggling routes and react to Calderón's use of the military to stamp out the drug trade. The Tijuana and Mexico City killings came on the same day a severed head was dumped at an army base in Veracruz state. All events came one day after Calderón promised to send troops there. A note left with the head was signed "Z-40," a signal from cartel enforcers called the Zetas. In Sonora, Bours said he has also asked the attorney general to investigate the Agua Prieta police. Last month, a reporter in the border town near Douglas was kidnapped in front of the police station, where Police Chief Ramon Tacho Verdugo had been gunned down two months earlier. Bours said he wanted Agua Prieta police investigated because Tacho had led the Cananea department. Tacho's former second-in-command is now in charge. <http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=11648958/grpspId=1705447214/msgI d=32990/stime=1179403043/nc1=3848611/nc2=3848527/nc3=3848643> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
