Mexico's drug gangs challenge the army
April 2, 2010 - 5:37pm
Of course, to some degree the Mexican army is also a drug gang but it's still not a good sign.
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Syndicate
It's true that in that past-any maybe even now-a Generalship in certain states was a licence to traffick-or rather to collect from traffickers.
But Narcos must be desperate to try and take on the Army directly instead of using tried and true methods like cold hard cash, either the Army isn't taking cash or the Narcos don't have the right phone numbers.
Cut off roads and the Army will send in helicopters it's that simple, they have the biggest guns always have had but as to using them.....
I'm not sure if you ever ride the trains with the Army in the old days, they always had the cars in the rear and it was THE place to be if you didn't like the cut of the fellow traveller's jib, the Mexican Army are Serious People anmd the Narcos are going to lose this fight-well some Narcos are going to lose-that's how the game is played.
I hadn't known about the oil dimension to this problem.
PEMEX, the major oil developer along the Mexican Gulf, has reported that cartels siphon about $1B in oil annually, reselling it on the open market to fund their insurgency. This tactic has escalated to include the kidnapping of PEMEX workers, possibly to further infiltrate the company.
US Military has Special Ops 'Boots on the Ground' in Mexico
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2010/06/us-militar...
"A special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations, claims a former CIA asset who has a long history in the covert operations theatre.."
If Dante had ever been to Juarez he would have placed it squarely in the seventh circle of hell, the one housing "violence" and "ringed by a river of boiling blood."
The city, which lies on the Rio Grande just across from El Paso, Texas, is the murder capital of the world, claiming more than 5,500 killings since January 2008. It is responsible for one-fifth of the more than 25,000 drug-related murders that have occurred in Mexico since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon officially declared war on the country’s heavily armed drug cartels.