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March 18, 2009
Drug Cartels' New Weaponry Means War
Police officers drive past a burning police vehicle in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. In a three-week period, five grenade attacks were launched on police patrols and stations.
Drug cartels' new weaponry means war
Narcotics traffickers are acquiring firepower more appropriate to an army -- including grenade launchers and antitank rockets -- and the police are feeling outgunned.
Reporting from Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and Mexico City -- It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city's police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades.
The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico's drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.
These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.
"There is an arms race between the cartels," said Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government.
"One group gets rocket-propelled grenades, the other has to have them."
There are even more ominous developments: Authorities reported three thefts of several hundred pounds of blasting material from industrial explosives plants in Durango during a four-day period last month. Authorities believe the material may have been destined for car bombs or remotely detonated roadside devices, which have been used with devastating effect in Iraq, killing more than 1,822 members of U.S.-led forces since the war there began nearly six years ago.
The Mexican army has recovered most of the material, and there has been no reported use of such devices.
Grenades or military-grade weapons have been reported in at least 10 Mexican states during the last six months, used against police headquarters, city halls, a U.S. consulate, TV stations and senior Mexican officials. In a three-week period ended March 6, five grenade attacks were launched on police patrols and stations and the home of a commander in the south-central state of Michoacan. Other such attacks occurred in five other states during the same period.
At least one grenade attack north of the border, at a Texas nightclub frequented by U.S. police officers, has been tied to Mexican traffickers.
It is a long article , you can read the rest of it here.......
Wild Thing's comment........
Good grief, all the way into Durango, the only Durango I konw of is Durango, Colorado. These gangs are coming further and further into other States. I don't want them in ANY City or State in our country.
This is a DRUG war. But Obama and Holder are using it for something else. Holder/Obama are gonna try to punish American citizens for the crimes happening in another nation!
The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today. "As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder told reporters.
Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.
"I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum." Holder said at a news conference on the arrest of more than 700 people in a drug enforcement crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating in the U.S.
....Thank you Horace for sending this to me.
Horace Smith
Pvt. E-1, USAR
1956-1964
Posted by Wild Thing at March 18, 2009 05:44 AM
Comments
And the goon squad will enable these gangs to infiltrate every section of our lives. It's not for prevention, oh no. He freely admits he did coke and other drugs as a teenager and now he'll be able to bring them here legally for his own pleasure so he can sit back and watch Americans die needlessly at the hands of these horrible people. He doesn't care what happens to my children. Thank God my father was a Marine (they watch out for even the children of Marines) and had friends in both the Mafia and the Hells Angels and other biker groups. When we were kids, they sort of watched out for us. I will not allow anyone to do anything to my children. NEVER! If I have to take drastic measures, I will.
Posted by: Lynn at March 18, 2009 08:25 AM
Hmmmn Durango eh? Well, one of Washington's bean bandits from Wenatchee was found 3 miles north of Sunnyside, shot, and torched in a vinyard, it took weeks just to identify the body, you guessed it, he's an illegal, so are those who murdered him, no arrests yet. This is a weekly occurrence there and it sure as hell isn't coming from the Canadian border just some 100 miles North. They are already amongst us, one police raid last week on an illegal in Sunnyside for a parole violation revealed, pipe bombs, molotovs, and a military hand grenade in the perp's possesion, this is the bottom eschelon or lower. The neighboring town 8 miles west is even worse. Excerpts from the tiny town's newspaper give a view into the gang activity there, and it's just one tiny town:
http://www.sunnyside.net/ArcStoryPage.asp?Database=Story&StoryID=14261
http://www.sunnyside.net/ArcStoryPage.asp?Database=Story&StoryID=15511
http://www.sunnyside.net/ArcStoryPage.asp?Database=Story&StoryID=15126
http://www.sunnyside.net/ArcStoryPage.asp?Database=Story&StoryID=14450
http://www.dailysunnews.com/DSNNews3.shtml
When the system fails vigilante justice is the only resort.
Posted by: Jack at March 18, 2009 12:02 PM
Hi Wild Thing
Love your blog.
The STATE of Durango is in Mexico.
In the western state of Durango, three people, including a 3-year-old child, were killed in a grenade attack in January...........
The fear of guerrilla warfare was compounded in February when 270 pounds of dynamite and several hundred electric detonators were stolen from a U.S. firm in the state of Durango. On Valentine's Day, about 20 masked gunmen, led by a heavyset man wearing gold rings and chains, stormed the warehouse of a subsidiary of Austin Powder Co., an industrial explosives manufacturer, according to official accounts. They overpowered guards and emptied the warehouse. Two similar thefts were reported within four days in the same area. Although the Mexican army recovered most of the dynamite, the incident augurs an even bloodier trend, officials said.
Posted by: Ben Stephens at March 18, 2009 12:16 PM
Two cultures at work here. The American drug culture and their need for their highs(Obama can identify with this) and the Mexican culture of corruption that works to supply these drugs. Illegals are in force in every metropolis, town and community in America, so the drug pipeline is complete. Besides dealing in drugs the illegals engage in all the other criminal activities from shoplifting to murder.
The illegals are a large subculture, almost a second nation within America. It provides cheap manual labor to American business, but it also is the cause of a lot of social problems. The cost of this subculture is more than it saves.
Posted by: TomR at March 18, 2009 12:35 PM
It will be a race to see which happens first, the entire population of Mexico moving north or the next terrorist attack on the United States. At the rate this POS is going it may well be a tie.
Posted by: Mark at March 18, 2009 05:36 PM
Lynn,I agree with you.
They better start shooting these people on sight, this has got to stop where they are coming in to our country. They are not good guys, but mean harm to Americans.
Jack, thank you so much for those links and information.
Ben Stephens , thank you so much that means a lot. Good to see you. Thanks for the information about Durango, The only one I ever heard and actually I have been there is Durango, Colorado.
Tom, wow amazing, thanks for telling about that. I had not even thought of things like the shoplifting they do and other things.
Mark, yes it might very well be a tie. Obama sure is inviting an attack.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 19, 2009 12:16 AM
