Mexican Cartel Note

Mexican Cartel Tactical Note # 7:

Los Zetas Three Vehicle (SUV) Commando Engages in Offensive Action in Northwest Harris County, Texas: Ensuing Fire Fight with US Law Enforcement

Key Information:

Via Dane Schiller, Houston Chronicle [1]:

The mission was supposed to be a textbook “controlled delivery” - a routine trap by law enforcement officers using a secret operative posing as a truck driver to bust drug traffickers when their narcotics are delivered to a rendezvous point.

Instead, things spun out of control. Shortly before the marijuana delivery was to be made Monday afternoon, three sport-utility vehicles carrying Zetas cartel gunmen seemingly came out of nowhere and cut off the tanker truck as it rumbled through northwest Harris County, sources told the Chronicle.

They sprayed the cab with bullets, killing the civilian driver, who was secretly working with the government. A sheriff's deputy, who was driving nearby in another vehicle, was wounded, possibly by friendly fire…

Sources discussed aspects of the shoot-out on the condition that they not be identified publicly due to the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.

A contingent of law-enforcement officers had been covertly shadowing the truck as it eased its way through the Houston area to deliver a load of marijuana fresh from the Rio Grande Valley…

As the gunmen attacked, officers quickly jumped into the fray and also opened fire on the attackers. The truck kept rolling until it careened off the roadway and came to a halt.

Dozens of law-enforcement officers descended on the scene as well as fanned out in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Four suspects, all believed to be citizens of Mexico, were arrested and charged Monday with capital murder in connection with the shooting…

…The sheriff's deputy, who has not yet been identified publicly, was hit in the knee during the melee, which involved several cars and guns…

Authorities would not discuss how the deceased driver, who in addition to being a confidential informant and holding a job as a commercial truck driver, first made contact with the traffickers….

…While some of the arrested attackers have allegedly admitted to an affiliation with the Mexico-based Zetas, authorities said they are trying to determine why such a bold and risky attack was launched over just 300 pounds of marijuana…

A 3:01 minute news video concerning the incident can be accessed via:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8439923 [2].

Who: Los Zetas’ personnel (Three Mexican nationals captured—two from Neuvo Laredo; Eric De Luna, 23; Ricardo Ramirez, 35 and Rolando Resendiz, 34; one other individual— Fernando Tavera, 19).

See primary source for booking photos [1] and another source for prior convictions and charges via court documents [7]. Other Zetas’ personnel are thought to have fled the incident scene. Three SUVs (a Black Lincoln Navigator was recovered at the scene) were utilized.  

What: Planned multi-agency law enforcement ‘controlled delivery’ using a confidential informant driving a 18-wheeler tanker truck with 300 lbs of marijuana interdicted by Los Zetas’ commando with ensuing fire fight. Confidential informant killed, undercover Harris county sheriffs deputy wounded (HCSO), and four Zetas captured.

When:  Monday afternoon, 21 November 2011.

Where: On Hollister Drive near Bourgeois Road in Northwest Harris County, Texas (near Houston) [6].

Why: Unknown; theories include the targeted killing (assassination) of the confidential informant and that a rip-off crew was assembled to steal what was thought to be a much larger load of marijuana. Another possibility is that the load was targeted because it was operating on Los Zetas turf and those associated with it had not paid local protection money (plaza taxes).

Tactical Analysis: This is a significant event and represents an escalation in cross border violence. According to Javier Pena, the new head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Houston Division, “Everybody is surprised at the brazenness…We haven’t seen this type of violence, which concerns us.” [1].

Given that the truck cab was sprayed with bullets it can be assumed that some of Los Zetas personnel carried semi-automatic rifles. No mention of individual body armor, vehicular armor, or actual weapons carried has been disclosed. All captured Zetas had military style (short) haircuts with no tattoos evident in the booking photos so unit discipline is noted. US law enforcement presence was significant when the Los Zetas offensive action took place and was augmented with dozens of responding officers. Under other circumstances, the three vehicle (SUV) Los Zetas commando’ could have potentially overwhelmed one or two responding police units if a ‘controlled delivery’ law enforcement operation had not been taking place.

Of additional concern are three other cross border homicide incidents recently mentioned in press reports. Concerning the first incident, a federal grand jury indictment (now sealed) stated that US Border Agent Brian A. Terry was killed in Mesquite Seep, Arizona, by an offensive patrol—“with the intent to ‘intentionally and forcibly assault’ Border Patrol agents”— composed of five illegal Mexican immigrants [3].  At least two of these individuals carried AK-47 semi-automatic rifles at ready position (barrel down at 45 degree angle/gun butt in shoulder)— in a meeting engagement on 14 December 2010 at 11:15 pm. The two AK-47s have been traced back to the failed BATF ‘Fast and Furious’ operation [3]. The Peck Canyon area is a well-known human and drug smuggling route. Which Mexican cartel, or drug gang the offensive narco unit was associated with was not disclosed. The second incident took place in Hidalgo County, Texas on Sunday 30 October 2011 during a traffic stop. Deputy Hugo Rodriguez was shot by David Gonzales Perez, a Gulf cartel contractor, in the chest and abdomen. Perez and another cartel operative had kidnapped two individuals who purportedly knew where over a thousand pounds of stolen Gulf cartel marijuana had been stashed. Perez was killed in the ensuing gun battle with the wounded deputy and his partner [4]. The third incident took place on Monday 21 November 2011 about 20 miles northwest of the border city of Nogales, Texas in the Devil’s Canyon area of the Tumacacori Mountains. Three men, two of which have been identified as Mexican nationals, were found dead, shot in the head execution style. The bodies had lain in the area for up to two weeks. The executed men are suspected of being drug traffickers [5].

Taken together these four very violent incidents represent more ‘data points’ for Mexican cartel cross border incursion tracking. More importantly, at the officer safety level, two of these incidents suggest that US law enforcement officers should expect to engage Cartel foot soldiers armed with AK-47 semi-automatic rifles as standard issue weapons (at a minimum). The 7.62mm armor piercing round of the AK-47 will defeat standard issue US law enforcement body armor. Further, as in the Brian A. Terry homicide incident, the US law enforcement officers initially fired back using shotguns with less-than-lethal beanbag loads. While the agents carried fully loaded side arms (with 2 additional magazines), the AK-47s are far superior militarily (in regards to rate-of-fire, penetration, and range) than the policing weapons. Additionally, the cartel tactical units/personnel initiated offensive actions against US law enforcement personnel in three of these highlighted incidents. For this reason officer safety, and military-like force protection, training will become increasingly relevant for law enforcement personnel deployed in areas of operation (AOR) containing Mexican cartel tactical units.    

Significance: Cartel Tactics; Cross Border Incursion; Force Protection; Officer Safety  

Source(s):

1.  Dane Schiller, “Zeta soldiers launched Mexico-style attack in Harris County.” Houston Chronicle. Updated 11:27 p.m., Tuesday, 22 November 2011, http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Zeta-soldiers-launched-Mexico-style-attack-in-2283370.php.

2. Houston (KTRK), “Sheriff's deputy shot, informant killed in undercover operation gone bad.” ABC News. Tuesday, November 22, 2011, http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8439923. Related videos appear at end of the news video.

3. Jerry Seper, “Armed illegals stalked Border Patrol: Mexicans were ‘patrolling’ when agent was slain, indictment says.” The Washington Times. Tuesday 22 November 2011, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/22/armed-illegals-stalked-border-patrol/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS.

4. Erika Flores, “Sheriff confirms deputy was shot in ‘spillover’ violence incident.” Valley Central.com. Monday 21 October 2011, http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=681024. See the Action-4 2.25 minute video.

5. Reuters, “Three Killed ‘Execution Style’ at U.S.-Mexico Border.” The New York Times. Tuesday 22 November 2011,

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/11/22/world/americas/international-us-usa-crime-mexico.html?_r=1&ref=world.

6. Action 4 News Staff, “Valley ties reported in deadly Zetas ‘attack’ near Houston.” ValleyCentral.com. 23 November 2011, http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=690057.

7. Christopher Sherman, “4 charged with capital murder in Houston attack on drug load watched by law enforcement.” The Republic. 23 November 2011, http://m.therepublic.com/view/story/a6fbb36bed5645288c7f2c4acbd84267/.

Background Note

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr., “Firefights, raids, and assassinations: tactical forms of cartel violence and their underpinnings.” Robert J. Bunker, ed., Narcos Over the Border. London: Routledge, 2011: 123-144.

Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 8: 230,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Mexico and ‘Narco-Refugee’ Potentials for the United States.

Key Information:

Via the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s (Oslo) Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2010:

Drug-cartel violence in Mexico escalated dramatically in 2010, with the violence reaching the highest levels since it broke out in 2006; as many as 15,000 people were killed as a result during the year. In 2010, northern states bordering the United States, where trafficking routes were concentrated, were most affected. While the violence has caused forced displacement, the government has not systematically collected figures to indicate its scale.

In 2010, most IDPs originated from the states most affected by violence, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas. Surveys conducted by a research centre in Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua estimated that around 230,000 people had fled their homes. According to the survey's findings, roughly half of them had crossed the border into the United States, with an estimated 115,000 people left internally displaced, predominantly in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila and Veracruz. There have been few attempts to define the scale of displacement in small rural towns in Tamaulipas and Chihuahua, even though the violence is believed to be even more intense in those rural areas. Furthermore, forced displacement has taken place alongside strong economic migration flows, making it harder to identify and document.

In Tamaulipas, the Cartel del Golfo and another cartel known as the Zetas fought for trafficking routes, terrorising the civilian population as a way to assert territorial control, and also targeting local authorities and journalists. The municipalities most affected were Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Alemán, Camargo and Díaz Ordaz.

In Ciudad Mier, a small locality near the border with the United States, the Zetas issued an open threat to all the inhabitants in November 2010, saying that people who remained in the town would be killed. As a result, as many as 400 people fled to the nearby town of Ciudad Miguel Alemán.

In Chihuahua, where the Cartel de Sinaloa began to challenge the dominance of the Cartel de Juárez and its control of trafficking routes, the large industrial town of Ciudad Juárez also experienced increased violence and forced displacement. The Municipal Planning Institute reported in 2010 that there were up to 116,000 empty homes in Juárez.

In 2010, federal authorities did not acknowledge, assess or document the needs of the people displaced, instead focusing their efforts on fighting the drug cartels. International agencies present in the country with protection mandates, including UNHCR and ICRC, followed events but, in the absence of government acquiescence, they did not establish programmes to provide protection and assistance or promote durable solutions for those forcibly displaced…[1].

Via Dr. Paul Rexton Kan’s Mexico’s “Narco-Refugees”: The Looming Challenge for U.S. National Security:

Since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels, there has been a rise in the number of Mexican nationals seeking political asylum in the United States to escape the ongoing drug cartel violence in their home country. Political asylum cases in general are claimed by those who are targeted for their political beliefs or ethnicity in countries that are repressive or are failing. Mexico is neither. Nonetheless, if the health of the Mexican state declines because criminal violence continues, increases, or spreads, U.S. communities will feel an even greater burden on their systems of public safety and public health from “narco-refugees.” Given the ever increasing cruelty of the cartels, the question is whether and how the U.S. Government should begin to prepare for what could be a new wave of migrants coming from Mexico.

Allowing Mexicans to claim asylum could potentially open a flood gate of migrants to the United States during a time when there is a very contentious national debate over U.S. immigration laws pertaining to illegal immigrants. On the other hand, to deny the claims of asylum seekers and return them to Mexico where they might very well be killed, strikes at the heart of American values of justice and humanitarianism. This monograph focuses on the asylum claims of Mexicans who unwillingly leave Mexico rather than those who willingly enter the United States legally or illegally. To successfully navigate through this complex issue will require a greater level of understanding and vigilance at all levels of the U.S. Government [2:vi].

Analysis:

Most news stories and analyses have concentrated on violence, corruption, illicit narcotics/weapons/monetary seizures, and the arrest/killing of cartel leaders in Mexico as a result of the ongoing criminal insurgencies taking place in that country.  The issue of large numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) now found in Mexico due to the effects of cartel and gang violence has been generally overlooked. Insights provided by the Justice in Mexico Project (Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego) pertaining to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre report suggest:

The report also stressed that the Mexican government does not compile displacement figures for people who have had to leave their homes because of “turf battles” between drug cartels, which has forced the Centre to rely on information from local researchers. Based on this information, the Centre estimates that as many as half of Mexico’s IDPs may have migrated to the United States.

While Mexico does not account for displaced populations as a result of the drug war, the Mexican Census taken in mid-2010 revealed that two-thirds of the homes in Praxedis G. Guerrero, a town east of Ciudad Juarez, have been abandoned, most likely due to the violence created from the wars between the Sinoloa and Juarez cartels in the area. The Internal Displacement report also indicates that many IDPs in Mexico were forced to move from their places of origins by other causes than drug violence, such as the 1994 Chiapas uprising [3].

Many Mexican security experts who have analyzed the narco wars    were unaware of the IDP issue or at least downplayed its significance. Until last year, the fact that 116,000 empty homes in Juárez existed was not known to many security analysts. This was evident in the RAND Delphi expert elicitation published as The Challenges of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations in October 2011.  This issue can be viewed pertaining to Table 4-1 as it relates to the ‘Demographics: Houses significant refugees or internally displaced persons’ scores. The rounded result and unrest score were both ‘0’ [4:43]. The experts participating could conceivably attest to the spirited debates related to this specific issue (Note—the mean score was 0.18 as shown in Table 3.1 [4:33]).

Policies focusing on ‘Narco-Refugees’—individuals who leave Mexico unwillingly and submit asylum claims in the U.S. as political refugees— also need to be further developed. Since cartels and gangs are de facto considered apolitical organizations (even though armed, violent, and increasingly politicized)— individuals who flee from local cartel and gang threats can be caught in a ‘Catch 22 situation’ when seeking political refugee status. Additionally, ‘Mexi-stan’ concerns and the interrelationship of U.S. drug policy vis-à-vis immigration policy and national security as they relate to the ‘narco-refugee’ phenomenon as highlighted by Dr. Kan [2:29] have to be further examined. This later insight was earlier highlighted by Tony Payan in The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration, and Homeland Security published in 2006 [5], though he warned of not conflating these issues [2:5, 5:20]. Still, it is important for SWJ readers to recognize that Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) exist in Mexico due to the criminal insurgencies taking place and that ‘Narco-Refugee’ potentials increasingly exist for the United States.

Source(s):

1. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2010. Oslo: Norwegian Refugee Council, March 2011, http://www.internal-displacement.org/publications/global-overview-2010 [This partial synopsis was taken from “Internal Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2010 – Mexico.” Refworld, UNHCR. 18 November 2011, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,4565c2253e,4565c25f49d,4d932e1bc,0,,,MEX.html].

2. Paul Rexton Kan, Mexico’s “Narco-Refugees”: The Looming Challenge for U.S. National Security. Carisle: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, October 2011, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1083.pdf.

3. Justice in Mexico Project, “Report Indicates 230,000 Internally Displaced Persons in Mexico.” Justiceinmexico.org. San Diego: Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, 28 March 2011, http://justiceinmexico.org/2011/03/28/report-indicates-230000-displaced-by-mexican-drug-war/. This article in turn cites Mark Stevenson, “Report: 230,000 Displaced by Mexico’s Drug War.” Forbes. 25 March 2011 and “Report: 230,000 Displaced by Mexico Drug War.” Jamaica Observer. 25 March 2011.

4. Christopher Paul, Agnes Gereben Schaefer, and Colin P. Clarke, The Challenge of Violent Drug-Trafficking Organizations: An Assessment of Mexican Security Based on Existing RAND Research on Urban Unrest, Insurgency, and Defense-Sector Reform. Santa Monica: RAND, October 2011, www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1125.pdf.

5. Tony Payan, The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration, and Homeland Security. Westport: Praeger Security International, 2006.

Mexican Cartel Tactical Note # 6:

Cross Border Incursion with SWAT Teams Responding: 15 Cartel/Gang Gunmen Cross into US Near Escobares, Texas

Key Information:

Via The Monitor [1]:

ESCOBARES — Gunmen crossed the Rio Grande into the United States near a shootout between where the Mexican military and a group of gunmen was taking place.

Several area SWAT teams responded about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to a ranch near Escobares, just across the U.S.-Mexico border, where a shootout broke out south of the Rio Grande.

The shootout reportedly began shortly after noon but details were not immediately available. Residents on the U.S. side reported seeing members of the U.S. Border Patrol and Starr County Sheriff’s Office securing the area near the border.

Border Patrol spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said agents had been tracking a suspected drug load near La Rosita and pushed it back to Mexico.

Border Patrol alerted Mexican authorities of the suspected load and then found an injured Mexican national on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, Huey said. Emergency crews rushed the man to an area hospital. His condition remains unknown.

The man, a suspected cartel gunman, had been shot by Mexican authorities, a separate U.S. law enforcement official said.

The official confirmed a group of as many as 15 gunmen had crossed the Rio Grande, though it remained unclear whether they were Mexican soldiers or cartel gunmen.

“We don’t know who they are,” the official said. “We haven’t gotten that information yet.”

Local authorities in Hidalgo County provided backup support along the Rio Grande as Border Patrol dispatched additional agents from the McAllen area to the incident in rural Starr County.

The experience was a bit unnerving for Ricardo Guerra, whose brother owns La Prieta Ranch in La Rosita. Guerra was overseeing the ranch hands shortly after noon when they noticed that the roads near the property became quickly swarmed with authorities.

“Yeah, you worry when that happens,” Guerra said. “We all went back inside the house. It looks like there was something going on over there (Mexico); we heard four or five shots from the helicopter. It looks like the (Mexican military) helicopter was shooting at the people on the ground over there.”

While he heard the shots, Guerra’s property soon swarmed with more than 100 law enforcement officials from various agencies.

“We saw them take one guy in an ambulance,” Guerra said. “He looked in bad shape.”

Additional information was solicited from the Border Patrol spokeswoman, one of the original reporters of the above newspaper story, and the Starr County Sheriff’s Office who have investigative authority over this incident. No further information was provided.

Who:  15 gunmen— elements of a cartel/drug gang.

What: Armed incursion on US soil by criminal combatants from the Mexican drug war.

When: Tuesday 8 November 2011 at 1:30 PM (13:30).

Where: A ranch near Escobares, Texas, just across the U.S.-Mexico border, north of the Rio Grande. See map [1].

Why: Bringing a drug load into the US and escape and evasion by elements of a cartel/drug gang from the Mexican military. 

Tactical Analysis: The most plausible explanation concerning the identity of the 15 gunmen is that they belong to a Mexican cartel/drug gang. The drug load had been pushed back from the Texas side over the border in a coordinated effort by US federal and local law enforcement and the Mexican military who had been alerted by the Border Patrol. Further, it would make no sense for the Mexican military to openly risk an international incident, or the possibility of a friendly fire event, by crossing the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) in hot pursuit when they were actively coordinating with US law enforcement assets. For the responding US SWAT teams, this incident poses a potentially dangerous situation. It is more of a military operation on a “movement to contact” than a conventional SWAT operation in the US. SWAT teams are trained and equipped to contend with criminals in barricade and hostage type situations and are accustomed to stacked (bunched together) movement and entry tactics. Typically the criminals encountered are found in small numbers— usually one or maybe two— and may or may not have a shotgun, semi-automatic rifle, and some form of body armor. It is the intent of such criminals to flee from responding police forces and only put up a fight if corned out of desperation—even then such criminals typically surrender to responding SWAT units. A group of 15 cartel/drug gang gunmen represents an entirely different threat—it essentially contains a reinforced squad of opposing force personnel. These cartel/gang foot soldiers will be proactive in their actions—not reactive like most criminals encountered— and therefore represent an opposing (enemy) force the US SWAT teams are unaccustomed to. Besides the potentials for ambushes and fires and movement being conducted by the cartel/gang gunmen, their semi-automatic (and full auto) assault weapons and the great likelihood of the presence of grenade-launchers and fragmentation grenades makes for a military-like engagement scenario that is beyond present SWAT capabilities to effectively respond. Under these circumstances, standard SWAT operating procedures—such as the use of stacked movement tactics— could be disastrous in their implementation.

Significance: Cross Border Incursion; Officer Safety; SWAT Tactics

Source(s):

1. Ildefonso Ortiz and Jared Taylor, “SWAT teams dispatched as gun battle unfolds near Escobares.” The Monitor. 9 November 2011, http://www.themonitor.com/articles/escobares-56422-swat-teams.html.

Mexican Cartel Strategic Note No. 7: US National Security and the Mexican Cartels: Proceso Magazine Interview with Dr. Robert J. Bunker

Jorge Carrasco Araizaga, reporter on military and judicial issues for

http://www.proceso.com.mx/, conducted an interview of the author pertaining to various elements of US national security and the Mexican cartels. The interview appeared in Proceso Magazine 6 de noviembre de 2011 (No. 1827). Proceso is a liberal—some would say left-wing— magazine which has shown a willingness to continue reporting on the criminal insurgencies taking place in Mexico. Given the ongoing cartel campaigns to silence journalists in Mexico, and the Sunday 6 November 2011 armed gunmen entry and ensuing arson attack on El Bueno Tono (“The Good Tone”) newspaper in Cordoba, Veracruz which gutted their offices [1], the willingness of Proceso to continue engaging in the freedom of the press (regardless of their politics) has to be respected.

Key Information: Interview Based Article

El imperio busca otros enemigos... en México

Jorge Carrasco Araizaga

2011-11-06 00:01:35 · Comentarios Desactivados

Narcotráfico

Una vez que su misión en Irak y Afganistán está a punto de culminar, el aparato militar estadunidense reenfoca un objetivo sensible: México. Es el principio de un cambio de prioridades –lo que en términos de la lógica del imperio implica buscar justificaciones para desatar nuevas guerras– en los “imperativos estratégicos” de Washington hacia su frontera sur, asegura a Proceso el experto en temas militares Robert J. Bunker, y advierte: ese cambio “será lento, pero ocurrirá”. Según este analista, las organizaciones delictivas mexicanas “son mucho más que eso. Son delincuentes insurgentes que de facto están ganando poder vía campañas de violencia y corrupción”.

http://www.proceso.com.mx/?page_id=278958&a51dc26366d99bb5fa29cea4747565fec=287282 (Note—Requires subscription).

The entire interview based article in Spanish is posted at this blogger site: http://senderodefecal1.blogspot.com/2011/11/proceso-el-imperio-busca-otros-enemigos.html?m=1.

Initial Interview Questions and Responses:

In order to ensure that the initial interview questions and responses are available to English readers, they are posted below. This will also ensure that the nuances of the responses that were then translated from English to Spanish are archived for researchers and not lost. The questions were submitted by Proceso and then responded to by the author in written form to ensure accuracy of response.

1. What does it mean the information related to the alleged plots against US interest in and from México?

It means either that the Iranian state’s capability to pull off highly successful and complex terrorist bombings has degraded to the point that it requires an Iranian-American used-car salesman operative and Mexican cartel assassins or that the alleged plot itself should be seriously re-examined. I’d go with the later. The best scenario we could come up with would be that of a self-radicalized ‘affinity’ terrorist, Manssor Arbabsiar, seeking to have the Saudi ambassador to the US killed and some embassies attacked. This neither makes him an Iranian state agent nor a member of the proxy Hezbollah terrorist group. We see Al Qaeda ‘affinity’ terrorists arising quite frequently via self and internet influenced radicalization.  The fellow was definitely operating above his terrorist planning skill set. Did Arbabsiar have a renegade Al Quds backer? Was it Gholam Shakuri? This may or may not have some validity and is actually of the most concern—it would mean very hard line factions exist in Iran—a nation bent on developing its own nuclear weapons. Still, it does not mean that this was an Iranian state sanctioned operation nor that the Los Zetas cartel would ever be involved in a high profile attack in Washington DC.

2. What are the facts supporting that versions?

The facts are derived from the filing of a Federal case against Arbabsiar and Shakuri. It is based on recordings of Arbabsiar made by the shadowy  ‘CS-1’, a paid DEA informant, who posed as Mexican cartel member. Much of this analysis is derived from fragmentary information reported in the media and is thus speculative in nature.

3. The Mexican Navy said the alleged report on the Islamic terrorist was a false paper. Who to believe to? Was an American leak to Borderland Beat or is an Mexican government lie?

We have no idea whom to believe. The first rule in something like this is to deny it, deny it, and then deny it again. I’m sure a forensic analysis of the document could be conducted to try to authenticate it. One of the questions to be asked is, if this is a counterfeit document, who would gain by undertaking this action.

4. On the alleged Iranian plot, many did not gave much credibility, because the main goal of the Mexican Cartel is to make money, and no attack to the US, because they are afraid of retaliations. What do you say to our readers?

The alleged Iranian state plot makes absolutely no sense and appeared to be used by some for ‘political coinage’ in Washington DC. Notice how the story has quickly died down. It sounded like a bad movie plot with elements of differing threat groups thrown together. Neither Iran, Hezbollah (a proxy), or Los Zetas want to put themselves in the direct gunsights of the American giant —strategically, it is far better for Al Qaeda to be allowed to remain the major focus of US attentions. And, yes— the threat of massive and overwhelming retaliation still does have some deterrent value.

5. You have asked for a shift in the American strategic imperative from Iraq/Afganistan to México. Are there the political conditions in Washington to do so or it is taking place, already? That means that Mexican cartels are now as dangerous as Al Qaeda for the US national security?

When I testified before a US Congressional Committee in September 2011, a number of congressmen, both implicitly and on the record, agreed with the assessment that the Mexican cartels—rather than Al Qaeda— should now be considered a greater national security threat to the United States. The view that ‘criminal insurgencies’ were taking place in Mexico, ones in which de facto political control was shifting to the cartels in the ‘areas of impunity’, was also discussed and the perception accepted by a number of the congressmen on the committee. With this said, US foreign policy is much like that of an oil supertanker— altering course is a painfully slow process. Bureaucratic inertia and vested agency interests to continue to focus on Al Qaeda as the #1 threat will mean that change will come slowly—but it will come. 

6. How the American experience in Iraq/Afganistan, both military and civilian, can be transferred to México?

The American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is not something that can be easily transferable to Mexico—nor should it be. Those conflicts encompassed violent radical Islamic groups, tribalism and competing religious Shia and Sunni religious views, the power politics of neighboring states, and the endemic use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers. Much of the American nation-building experience in those conflicts have no relevance to Mexico. The dominant issues for Mexico focus on basic security, corruption, and the challenge of narcoauthority (and culture) to Mexican state sovereignty.  

7. US soldiers are sharing that experience with Mexico, already?

Where immediate lessons learned will come into play will be with the use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for real time intelligence support/targeting identification for Mexican Federal forces. They will not, however, be used for the actual elimination (targeted killing) of cartel personnel. Also the US military has quite a bit of experience in the use of social networking analysis applied to insurgent forces. This would be very useful as an intelligence support function for the Mexican authorities as they analyze the various cartel networks.

8. What kind of contributions can make the US contractors In México?

US contractors can provide logistical, intelligence, analytical, and training support. This would place them in a general contracting role and they would be up against domestic Mexican and foreign corporations also competing to fulfill these services. The Mexican government would probably would keep a strict limit on how many US contractors they might use but private and public Mexican corporations and the multinationals with operations in Mexico will go with the best deals they can cut in a globalized and highly competitive business environment. 

9. One concern in Mexico is the possibility of American mercenaries come dawn to the country via the private security contractors, in order to confront the cartels. Are there reasons to believe that?

As military contracts begin to dry up in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would only be natural for American private military corporations to look at the conflict in Mexico as a new area for business development. I believe private Colombian organizations also have an eye on this emerging market. This is no different than the Blackwater (later Xe) Corporation seeking to provide security services, and providing them, in post-Katrina New Orleans in 2005. I’m guessing that Mexican owned and manned private security corporations are doing a booming contract business already. Given the cost-effectiveness, cultural and language factors, and far greater political acceptability of using local security companies, immense barriers of entry would exist for foreign private security contractors. Also, I don’t think Mexico wants or needs them. This of course assumes that the majority of the Mexican security companies remain uncorrupted by cartel influences. 

10. What is your opinion on the Fast and Furious Operation and the Vicente Zambada criminal case in Chicago, who says the Sinaloa cartel had a deal with the DEA?

a. Opinion on the Fast and Furious Operation:

It appeared to originate at a relatively high management level in the US BATF. It would definitely require authorization much higher than that of the regional level. Apparently, at least eleven BATF Agents and senior managers protested this operation during its earliest stages. This, unfortunately, is a prime case of one or more high level BATF manager(s) being out of touch with tactical and operational realities. Cartel confederates purchased possibly over fifty Barrett .50 caliber rifles and about 2,500 other firearms, including AK-47 semi-automatic rifles. The purported purpose for this operation was to track the path of the weapons once they entered Mexico.  It is extremely difficult to understand from any law enforcement perspective what value, if any, could be realized from such an operation.

b. Opinion on Vicente Zambada criminal case in Chicago, who says the Sinaloa cartel had a deal with the DEA?

He has absolutely nothing to lose by saying this since he is looking at considerable prison time. Possibly he is trying to cut a deal for a reduced sentence. Strategically, if the DEA gave the suppression of the Sinaloa cartel a lower priority in its operations—as opposed to the other cartels— this would make some sense. It would represent a law enforcement triage approach to contending with these threats—this, however, would not mean that the DEA had a hand shake deal with the Sinaloa cartel. Any notion that the DEA is working with that cartel strikes me as a conspiracy theory. The DEA does not inherently like or will favor one cartel over another— the Enrique “Kiki” Camarena saga from the mid-1980s shows the lengths that organization will go to avenge the death of its agents and its inherent loathing for drug trafficking organizations in general.

11. Giving the evolution of the Mexican cartels, it is correct to say that the Mexican intelligence services, both civilian and military, were surpassed?

My estimate is that these intelligence services were initially blindsided by Calderon’s military deployments/initiatives in December 2006 against the cartels in areas of the country over which the state was losing control. They surely were not given much early warning of what was coming via the new administration’s policies. They have since had to recover and have done so fairly well—though they keep facing cartel counter-moves and unintended second order effects of the governmental policies. Cartel movement into parts of Central America to set up safe havens/logistical bases is a prime example of a counter-move. The morphing of the cartels from illicit narcotics based (drug gangs) to multiple illicit revenue streams via street taxation, kidnapping, bulk fuel theft, human smuggling (making them polygot criminal entities) and the development of a larger illicit narcotics market in Mexico represent unintended second order effects. The cartels exist in that ‘blurring between crime and war’ arena—this is maddening from a criminal intelligence (policing) and military intelligence (warfighting) perspective. The cartels, as criminal-soldier based entities, are difficult for intelligence services to contend with because a blended form of intelligence is required to counter them.

12. Could you point out the strategic and tactical errors of the Mexican government fighting the cartels, as well theirs achievements?

The first strategic error is continuing to characterize and respond to the cartels as simple organized criminals—they are much more than that. They are criminal insurgents and are gaining de facto political power via campaigns of violence and corruption —in some regions the local cartel bosses look a lot like medieval warlords. The second strategic error is the ongoing centralization of the effort against the cartels. Eliminating local police forces in favor of state or national level forces only would be a great mistake. While a centralized effort is required and should be coordinated from Mexico City, it has to be blended with a bottom up and local operational area networked response. Strategic achievements have been the targeting and elimination (arrest or killing) of much of the higher level cartel leadership of the various cartels and what appears to be the policy of targeting the most violent cartels—La Familia and Los Zetas—first. This strategy was undertaken in Colombia years ago with first the elimination of the more violent Medellin cartel followed by the elimination of the more subtle Cali cartel. Note— tactical errors are of little consequence. Also— I think, in retrospect historians, will be very kind to President Calderon, but it might take some decades. He saw what needed to be done and did it. The majority of Americans really respect that. He will probably always be considered a failure as a politician—but then great statesmen such as Calderon put the good of their nation above party politics.  

Notes

1. From CNNMexico.com, “Newspaper Office in Vera Cruz Mexico Set on Fire.” Borderland Beat. Sunday, 6 November 2011, http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/11/newspaper-office-in-vera-cruz-mexico.html.

Key Information:

Via 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment – Emerging Trends. National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC): Washington DC, October 2011. (http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment)

Gangs are expanding, evolving and posing an increasing threat to US communities nationwide. Many gangs are sophisticated criminal networks with members who are violent, distribute wholesale quantities of drugs, and develop and maintain close working relationships with members and associates of transnational criminal/drug trafficking organizations. Gangs are becoming more violent while engaging in less typical and lower-risk crime, such as prostitution and white-collar crime. Gangs are more adaptable, organized, sophisticated, and opportunistic, exploiting new and advanced technology as a means to recruit, communicate discretely, target their rivals, and perpetuate their criminal activity… 

Gang Membership and Expansion

Approximately 1.4 million active street, OMG [outlaw motorcycle gang], and prison gang members, comprising more than 33,000 gangs, are criminally active within all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (see Appendix A). This represents a 40 percent increase from an estimated 1 million gang members in 2009. The NGIC attributes this increase in gang membership primarily to improved reporting, more aggressive recruitment efforts by gangs, the formation of new gangs, new opportunities for drug trafficking, and collaboration with rival gangs and drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Law enforcement in several jurisdictions also attribute the increase in gang membership in their region to the gangster rap culture, the facilitation of communication and recruitment through the Internet and social media, the proliferation of generational gang members, and a shortage of resources to combat gangs.

Source: NGIC and NDIC 2010 National Drug Survey Data (For Public Release)

Analysis: The recently released 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment – Emerging Trends is published as a 104 page document in PDF and HTML forms.  This sobering document represents an update to the 2009 assessment. Of specific concern is the increase in active gang membership from 1 million to 1.4 million over a two-year period. This increase is primarily attributed to better reporting procedures, increased gang recruitment and acceptance in some sectors of society, and the illicit economic benefits of gang membership. While not all the gangs profiled in the assessment have links to the Mexican cartels, identified as Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations [MDTOs], six of these cartels have linkages to the following gangs on both sides of the US-Mexican border [pp. 84-85]:

• Arizona Mexican Mafia (Old & New)
• Barrio Azteca
• Border Brothers (California)
• Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos
• Latin Kings
• Los Carnales
• Los Negros
• Mexican Mafia (California)
• Mexikanemi
• MS-13
• New Mexico Syndicate
• Partido Revolutionary Mexicano
• Raza Unida
• Sureños
• Texas Chicano Brotherhood
• Texas Syndicate
• West Texas Tangos
• Wet Back Power

These linkages are even more inclusive on a local level according to the 2010 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) open source report [See p. 26]. The dominant areas of gang presence in the US, by county, also have some correlation with the South Western region per the attached map, though much of the information for the State of Texas was not included in the assessment.

Further trends (selected) were identified in the key findings section of the assessment and should be noted. These are:

• An average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions can be attributed to gang members.

• Some gang members have gone beyond simple involvement with illicit trafficking and are working for the Mexican cartel as enforcers.  

• Gang members, relatives, and associates, are encouraged to join law enforcement and other public agencies for information gathering purposes

• The members of over 50 gangs have been identified in domestic and foreign US military bases. Concern exists regarding such members “…learning advance weaponry and combat techniques.” 

• Gang members are acquiring high-powered military weaponry and equipment including bullet proof vests and various forms of police and official identification.

While gangs are recognized as an increasing threat to US communities, they are viewed as solely a law enforcement problem within the assessment. The growing military-like capabilities of gangs, however, has been noted in the outlook section of the document:

Gang members armed with high-powered weapons and knowledge and expertise acquired from employment in law enforcement, corrections, or the military may pose an increasing nationwide threat, as they employ these tactics and weapons against law enforcement officials, rival gang members, and civilians (p. 45).

This concern appears to be active-aggressor and tactical-unit focused. It is also projected in the assessment that either gang expansion or displacement into new areas will take place as criminal opportunities are identified.

Suggestions: Further analytical development of this assessment is warranted in two particular areas of concern. The first is the use of the term ‘gang evolution’. While the term is utilized, it is not grounded to any form of modal analysis—such as gang generational studies (3GEN Gangs) [1]. The evolution of the gangs stated to be taking place in the assessment is thus left open ended—something is happening but what it is is unknown. Gangs are simply said to be becoming more collaborative with rivals and criminal organizations, sophisticated, profit focused, and technologically savvy. Attempts to provide early warning and trends and threats analysis is therefore very basic in its execution. The second area of concern is the publication of this assessment and the publication of the 2011 National Drug Threat Assessment document (www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs44/44849/44849p.pdf). These documents are becoming increasingly intertwined, even blurred, yet the illicit drug market and the Mexican cartels discussed in one document and the various forms of gangs (street, prison, and OMG) discussed in the other are separated by an artificial ‘institutional firebreak’ within US law enforcement response. With 1.4 million active street, OMG, and prison gang members in the United States, and Mexican cartel operations now taking place in over 1,000 US cities [2], this information and response seam is unacceptable. It represents a dysfunctional bureaucratic barrier— the old Federal stovepipes and rice bowls approach— to an evolving and increasingly networked national security threat. Serious consideration should be given to blending these two documents together into a future strategic assessment in order to present a more comprehensive picture of the larger threat we as a nation are facing. 

Notes:

1. The original document concerning this area of studies is John P. Sullivan, “Third Generation Street Gangs; Turf, Cartels, and Net Warriors.” Transnational Organized Crime. Vol. 3. No. 3. Autumn 1997: 95-108. Numerous documents have since been published on this area of gang studies. For an initial primer, see John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, “Third Generation Gang Studies: An Introduction.” Journal of Gang Research. Vol. 14. No. 4. Summer 2007: 1-10.

2. See Robert Bunker, “Mexican Cartel Strategic Note: Mexican Cartels (Transnational Criminal Organizations) Now Operating in Over 1,000 US Cities; Up From 195 US Cities.” Small Wars Journal. 25 September 2011, http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/mexican-cartel-strategic-note.

Key Information:

Via “Monterrey: Army attacked in car bomb ambush.” Borderland Beat

Thursday, October 20, 2011 [1]: 

A parked car loaded with explosives was detonated by remote control as a military convoy drove by in Monterrey’s southside in an ambush reminiscent of attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The incident took place around 5:10 am this morning on Avenida Revolucion close to the intersection with Ricardo Covarrubias, in the Colonia Ladrillera, outside of a machine shop/auto garage.

A military source said that during a surveillance patrol in the Colonia Ladrillera soldiers detected a suspicious vehicle, a black Jetta, which resulted in a pursuit thru Avenida Revolución.

As the pursuit continued north on Avenida Revolucion a Nissan Sentra or Tsuru with Tamaulipas license plates was detonated remotely moments before the Army vehicles passed the location, between Berel and Ricardo Covarrubias.

No soldiers or civilians were reported injured in the attack.

Debris from the blast was scatterd over several meters. The door to the machine shop was heavily damaged and windows were broken in buildings for at least a block.

Avenida Revolucion remained closed as bomb experts and forensic examiners investigated the blast scene.

[Includes 8 photos of the incident scene and a 4 minute Mexican news video: view via http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/10/monterrey-army-attacked-in-car-bomb.html.]

Via “Army seizes explosives in Veracruz.” Borderland Beat. Thursday, October 20, 2011 [2]:

In a security operation that occurred Wednesday in the southern Veracruz city of Coatzacoalcos, military personnel seized high explosives, detonators, weapons, cell phones, military type equipment and stolen vehicles from a safehouse located in the colonia Brisas del Golfo area of the city.

The El Universal news agency reported that Mexican Army sources in Coatzacoalcos identified the explosives seized as 45 C-4 plastic explosive charges.

Five suspects were detained by the military during the operation.

[Includes 5 photos of the seized explosives, cell phones, vehicles and weapons: view via http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/10/army-seizes-explosives-in-veracruz.html].

VBIED Anti-Vehicular/Anti-Personnel Ambush:

Who: Los Zetas [assumed]

What: I&W event involving a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device)/car bomb deployed against a mounted Mexican Army patrol by means of an ambush.

When: Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 5:10am in the morning [3].

Where: On Avenida Revolucion close to the intersection with Ricardo Covarrubias, in the Colonia Ladrillera, outside of a machine shop/auto garage in Monterrey, Mexico.

Why: The Mexican military is attempting to help pacify Monterrey, Mexico, bring down the homicide rate, and limit local drug cartel and gang political influence. The ambush is a response to this Mexican military operation.

Tactical Analysis: Provides an Indications & Warning (I&W) event concerning Los Zetas [assumed] tactics and capabilities. A cell phone detonated improvised explosive device (IED) placed inside the trunk of a small sedan is the most plausible—making it a VBIED (vehicle borne IED)—method of attack. The explosive type utilized is unknown but C-4 is quite probable; these assumptions have not been confirmed forensically and therefore are only speculative. A cartel vehicle was used as bait to bring a mounted Mexican Army patrol into the prepared kill zone. The VBIED was detonated prematurely with no soldiers or civilians injured in the ambush. Scenario 1: The VBIED was meant to be utilized in an efficient anti-vehicular/anti-personnel role to produce maximum Mexican military causalities. The ambush was unsuccessful due to the premature VBIED detonation and/or the explosive yield/dynamics utilized (small yield/non- directional). Scenario 2: The VBIED was utilized symbolically (as a warning) to the Mexican military to cease/limit their operations in Monterrey [4]. No matter the accuracy of either scenario, this incident represents the first recorded use of a VBIED against a mounted Mexican Army patrol and a further escalation of VBIED tactical evolution taking place in the criminal insurgencies in Mexico. The VBIED in an ambush role component itself is not unique— it was utilized in the VBIED attack against dismounted Mexican law enforcement in July 2010 in Ciudad Juárez perpetrated by the Juárez cartel [5]. Explosives seized: The C-4 explosives (45 packages), detonators, and cell phones seized in Veracruz, Mexico, prior to the VBIED attack demonstrate that caches of bomb making materials belonging to Los Zetas [assumed] exist in other regions of Mexico and can be used to fabricate additional VBIEDs [2]. Further, if the recent Mexican Cartel Tactical Note No. 4 is referenced, it can be seen that C-4 explosives (3 packages) are once again identified related to a Los Zetas [assumed] weapons cache [6]. Potentials: The assumption must be considered that Los Zetas possess a growing VBIED fabrication and deployment capability.    

Significance: Cartel Weaponry; I&W; Officer Safety Issues; TTPs

Source(s):

1. The original Mexican news sources are:

http://www.elnorte.com/seguridad/articulo/654/1306879/.

http://www.elnorte.com/seguridad/articulo/654/1306973/.

2. The original Mexican news source is: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/802722.html.

3. The alternative time of 4:00 AM for the incident has been provided in other news sources. Both times suggested would mean that the device was detonated under cover of darkness (sunrise is at 7:42 AM) while visibility levels are lower.  For sunrise validation see http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=162&month=10&year=2011&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1.

4. This perception is attributed to John P. Sullivan, an El Centro Senior Fellow, during discussions on 20 October 2011 concerning the use of symbolic and instrumental violence pertaining to this VBIED ambush.

5. Note—C-4 explosives were utilized via cell phone detonation. For more information pertaining to that incident see John P. Sullivan, “Explosive Escalation?  Reflections on the Car Bombing in Ciudad Juarez.” Small Wars Journal. 21 July 2010, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/explosive-escalation.

6. David Kuhn and Robert Bunker, “Mexican Cartel Tactical Notes: No 4. Cartel Military Weapons Cache Discovered Near Fronton, Texas.” Small Wars Journal. 15 October 2011, http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/mexican-cartel-tactical-note-4.

Key Information:

Via the statement of Alan Bersin, Commissioner, Customs and Border Protection (June 2011):

Since October 1, 2004, 127 CBP employees have been arrested or indicted for acts of corruption including drug smuggling, alien smuggling, money laundering, and conspiracy. Of the 127 arrests, 95 are considered mission compromising acts of corruption. This means that the employee’s illegal activities were for personal gain and violated, or facilitated the violation of, the laws CBP personnel are charged with enforcing. An example of the impact a single corrupt employee can make through a mission compromising act of corruption can be seen in the instance of former CBP Technician Martha Garnica who was indicted federally in 2009. In 2010 Garnica was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, and serve four years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiring to import over 100 kilograms of marijuana into the United States, conspiring to smuggle undocumented aliens, three counts of bribery of a public official, and one count of importation of a controlled substance.

Apart from the 95 cases identified above, the remaining 32 arrests are considered non-mission compromising acts of corruption in which the employee’s illegal activities involved the misuse or abuse of the knowledge, access, or authority granted by virtue of their official position in a manner that did not facilitate the violation of laws that the agency is charged with enforcing at the border. These cases fall into one of five broad categories: Theft; Fraud; Misuse of a Government Computer/Database; False Statements; and Drug-Related Offenses [1].

See Crossing the line: Corruption at the border; 128 cases shown [http://projects.cironline.org/bordercorruption/] at Center for Investigative Reporting for specific case information. The interactive site contains individual case profiles, supporting documentation, and case statistics; gender, agency, years or service, type of crime, state, year, age and duty station [2].  

Analysis:

Much of the concern relating to the Mexican cartels focuses on acts of violence such as homicides, assaults, and torture along with the illicit economic activities of narcotics trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, bulk thefts, and human smuggling. A large component of Mexican cartel operations is derived from the targeted corruption of public officials within their areas of operation. The initial intent is to achieve impunity and freedom of action. This represents the ‘insurgency’ element of the criminal insurgencies taking place in Mexico, Central America, and now over the US Southern Border, an element, according to John Sullivan, that is still not recognized by many individuals. Essentially, the public agency (be it local, state or federal) being targeted is compromised one official at a time. When combined with the threat (and subsequent use) of violence the well known cartel technique of offering the choice of silver or lead (¿Plata O Plomo?) is achieved. This is akin to the environmental modification of a street, barrio, or plaza controlled by a cartel or gang with the imposition of a new set of values (narcocultura) and rules (cartel political authority)— though, in this instance, it is directed at a public entity in order to compromise and co-opt it (representing the aggregate of all of the individuals corrupted). What has worked so successfully in Mexico and Central America is now being incrementally utilized by the cartels against the United States’ ports of entry—and, we can also assume, much deeper into the US homeland. The following quote from Alan Bersin is most telling in this regard:

CBP IA agents participate as active members of the FBI-led National Border Corruption Task Force (NBCTF) initiative. Presently, CBP IA agents are deployed in 22 Border Corruption Task Forces (BCTFs) and/or Public Corruption Task Forces (PCTFs) nationwide, including 13 task forces operating along the southwest border. These multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency task forces share information, intelligence, and investigative resources in an effort to combat border corruption. The task force approach serves as a force multiplier on corruption investigations and allows for a higher level of return on the investment of appropriated resources [1].

The FBI-led National Border Corruption Task Force (NBCTF) initiative is now very active and appears to be growing. How this threat to US sovereignty will further evolve is unknown. What is recognized is that as a nation we can recover from cartel violence directed at our officials and our citizens—the corruption of our public institutions is an entirely different matter. This element of the criminal insurgent threat represented by the Mexican cartels must not be underestimated. Per Andrew Becker and Richard Maros:

Since 2006, the number of investigations has more than tripled, from 244 to about 870 last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General [3].

We already have at least 127 Customs and Border Protection employees indicted or convicted in corruption cases—that list is going to grow along with that of public officials in other city, state, and federal agencies. The question is to what extent and, ultimately, what our national response is going to be to protect our public institutions from criminal co-option.

Notes:

This Strategic Note is a byproduct of discussions between the author, John Sullivan, and Dr. David Shirk after the Justiciabarómetro Ciudad Juarez Police Survey event held at the Trans-Border Institute (TBI), University of San Diego, San Diego, CA., Tuesday 18 October 2011. The author would like to thank John Sullivan for his analytical insights pertaining to criminal insurgencies and to David Shirk for his identification of the Center for Investigative Reporting border corruption case dataset.

Source(s):

1. Statement of Alan Bersin, Commissioner, Customs and Border Protection, before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs on “Border Corruption: Assessing Customs and Border Protection and The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's Office Collaboration in the Fight to Prevent Corruption.” 9 June 2011. http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/testimony/testimony_1307549850535.shtm.

2. Crossing the line: Corruption at the border; 128 cases shown. Center for Investigative Reporting. 17 October 2011. http://projects.cironline.org/bordercorruption/. (See also the extensive list of news reports and documents).

3. Andrew Becker and Richard Marosi, “Border agency’s rapid growth accompanied by rise in corruption.” Center for Investigative Reporting. 17 October 2011. http://centerforinvestigativereporting.org/node/4885.

Mexican Cartel Tactical Notes: No 4. Cartel Military Weapons Cache Discovered Near Fronton, Texas.

Who: US Border Patrol Agents find a Mexican cartel (assumed) weapons cache and turn it over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (BATF) for further investigation. Border Patrol Chief Rosendo Hinojosa made comments to the media pertaining to the incident.

What: Black bag found in the brush containing:

            • 6 Assault Rifles [See Photo]

            • 1 Rocket Launcher [See Photo]

            • 1 Grenade Launcher

            • 3 Packages of C-4 Explosives (Per News Video)

            • 1 Lower Receiver for an Assault Rifle

            • 20 Magazines

When:  Tuesday, 13 September 2011.

Where:  Near Fronton, Texas, North of the Rio Grande River on US soil. Mexican city reference: Roughly between Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa.

Why:  The weapons cache was either left in the brush near the Rio Grande for pick up or abandoned due to US LE presence in the vicinity. One assumption is that the weapons were meant for a cartel kill-team/enforcers operating in the region; another is that they were on their way to Mexico.

Photo Forensics:

Photo: Courtesy of US Customs and Border Protection (For Public Release)

General ID information only due to the angle and resolution of the picture.

Top Weapon: An enhancement of the sling ring and end cap shows that it is an M-72 Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW), possibly an A2 model.

2^nd Weapon: Either an AR-15 or an M-16 (selector on opposite side) that appears to be a “parts” weapon. It is not in fireable condition as the recoil spring and recoil spring housing are missing along with the stock.

3^rd Weapon: Appears in all respects to be an AR-10 (7.62mm x 51mm).  The verified size of the magazine well is consistent with that of a 7.62mm magazine and the slight forward cant of the well is germane to the AR-10 only.  Additionally, the enlarged head on the take-down pin on the receiver of this Armalite is not common to other AR models, but does occur on the AR-10; and the size and format of the brass deflector on this weapon only occurs on the AR-10. There is also no forward assist on the receiver. Production time period and exact model variance from the angle of view is uncertain.

4^th Weapon: An AK action in a polymer stock; possibly a knock-off that was originally semi-auto possibly converted to full.

5^th Weapon: Weapon with the well-worn receiver appears to be a select-fire M-4 carbine.

6^th Weapon: appears to be a Model SAR-4800 Sporter Rifle in 7.62 x 51mm.  The pistol grip on the stock has been trimmed way down to fit a smaller hand.  The barrel has also been cut off just ahead of the gas piston adjustment for maneuverability.

7^th Weapon (Partial): No ID due to partial image.

Tactical Analysis: Mexican cartel weapon caches containing military grade weaponry have been regularly found throughout Mexico and even close to the US-Mexican border. This specific cache was found on US soil and contained a rocket launcher (M72 LAW), a grenade launcher (type not identified), and C-4 explosives in addition to assault rifles. Of significance is that an earlier weapons cache was also discovered in this same area by US Border Patrol personnel (assigned to the Rio Grande City Station) on Wednesday 16 March 2011. During that incident a suspicious pickup truck was viewed and when personnel searched the area where it had stopped they found a large duffle bag hidden in the brush. The bag contained:

            • 8 AK-47 Assault Rifles

            • 2 AR-15 Assault Rifles

            • 350 Rounds of Ammo (Varying calibers)

• 2 Grenades (Type not identified; blown in place by local bomb squad)

• 1 40mm Grenade Launcher [See Photo; appears to be a M-203 variant]

These weapons were also turned over to the BATF for further investigation.

Photo: Courtesy of US Customs and Border Protection (For Public Release)

Initial analysis suggests that cartel operatives for whatever reason, likely Zetas or Gulf cartel personnel given the location of the find, are now bringing heavier infantry weapons into the United States. That analysis, however, is in variance with earlier statements made by Chief Hinojosa who said the weapons in the March seizure were being smuggled into Mexico. In that case military grade weapons such as the 40mm Grenade Launcher (presumably stolen and then resold) are loose in the US and are being sent to Mexico. In either scenario the rocket and grenade launcher seized in September 2011 (and the grenade launcher seized earlier) pose a significant US officer safety threat as does the C-4 which can be utilized in an improvised explosive device (IED) role.  

Significance: Cartel Weaponry; Officer Safety Issues

Source(s):

Mark Nino, “Border Patrol Agents Seize Weapon Cache”. KVEO 23- Rio Grande Valley. 14 September 2011, http://www.kveo.com/news/border-patrol-agents-seize-weapon-cache. [See Video]

Ildefonso Ortiz, “Border Patrol finds rocket launcher, grenade launcher, explosives near Rio Grande.” The Monitor. 14 September 2011, http://www.themonitor.com/news/launcher-54726-grande-grenade.html.

Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol, CBP Public Affairs, “Agents Find Cache of Weapons near Rio Grande”. 17 March 2011, http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/archives/march_2011/03172011_3.xml.

South Texas Today, “BP Agents Find Weapons, Ammunition and Grenade”. 17 March 2011, http://mannydelarosa40.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/bp-agents-find-weapons-ammunition-and-grenade/.

The Document: Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment was published in September 2011 and authored by Barry McCaffrey and Robert Scales, Ph.D. — both retired Army generals and highly respected national security thinkers. Colgen LP (www.colgen.net) was commissioned by Texas Department of Agriculture which was tasked by the 82^nd Texas Legislature to undertake this assessment. The document, which garnered significant media attention when first released, can be accessed at: www.texasagriculture.gov/.../46982_Final%20Report-Texas%20Border%20Security.pdf.

The main document is 59 pages in length and also contains a section with additional pages composed of twelve attachments. The document has an executive summary and a general bibliography of works influencing the assessment but is not endnoted. The study was initially prompted by the pleas of rural farmers and ranchers in Texas to help secure the border due to the Mexican cartels establishing themselves on their lands. Per Commissioner Todd Staples, Texas Department of Agriculture:

The report offers a military perspective on how to best incorporate strategic, operational, and tactical measures to secure the increasingly hostile border regions along the Rio Grande River. It also provides sobering evidence of cartel criminals gaining ground on Texas soil.

In addition to a discussion of the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of conflict, high points of the report go on to discuss Texas as a narco-sanctuary, the State of Texas’ organization for combat via a Unified Command system, the role of the Texas Rangers, the effectiveness and flexibility of the system utilized by Texas law enforcement, and solving border security problems together. General recommendations in paragraph form are then provided concerning communications and the network, operations, intelligence, technology, and learning to further enhance the Texas border security system.

Analysis:  This is a very significant and cogent assessment and will greatly impact the Mexican cartel debate that is taking place in the United States. What is most striking is that the State of Texas was compelled to commission a report that took a military analytical perspective on Mexican cartel spillover—essentially narco-sanctuary emergence on American soil with dedicated battalion/brigade level equivalent C² (command and control) facilities (p. 19). While such sanctuaries have been established in Central America by the cartels, the fact that they are now found in the border counties of Texas is of immense concern. Additionally, the attachments found in the report were meant to provide concrete proof of the magnitude of the threat posed by the cartels and their gang associates in both Texas and Mexico.

While the report will primarily have operational level utility, via the recommendations made, for Texas law enforcement, it raises more strategic and political questions than it answers— thought this surely has to be part of the intent of the 82^nd Texas Legislature in commissioning it. The report helps to bring the media spotlight to the conflict in Texas— one of the many theaters of operations the cartels and gangs are now engaged—albeit a transit center of gravity into the US with all the major plazas it contains.

One strategic questioned raised concerns the corruptive influence of the cartels in addition to their propensity for violence. The assessment was written by retired generals and is primarily focused on cartel ‘combat potentials’ and a military-like response to them. Of increasing concern is the undermining of US public and law enforcement officials and institutions. This poses an equal if not greater threat to the State of Texas. The ¿Plata O Plomo? (Silver or Lead) technique of using corruption and violence directed against a law enforcement unit to negate it is synergistic in nature and no different in many ways than the use of armor, infantry, and artillery forces to negate an opposing military unit.

One broader political question raised by this report is the relationship between the US Federal Government and the State of Texas. The Federal Government has many obligations to the entire nation— to ensure our economic prosperity (via programs such as NAFTA), to provide for the health and welfare of US citizens (via National Drug Control policy), and to maintain lawful immigration and guest visitor programs (via National Immigration policy). Arguably, it is not scoring high marks on the later of these obligations and very mixed results on the former ones. Where it is fully deficient is in contending with Mexican cartel penetration into the United States, the association of these cartels with gangs and other criminal groups, and the more encompassing illicit economies on which they capitalize. The State of Texas is facing much of the brunt of this issue— though Arizona is also significantly impacted with the kidnappings, incidents of public corruption, and cartel operatives deployed in its border zones.

By all appearances, ‘Texas is being hung out to dry’ by the current executive administration and legislative houses in Washington DC. While this might not be the case, the current DC power structures appear for the most part either in denial or at a loss or unable to respond to the situation taking place in Texas. Quite possibly we are now faced with an “intractable national problem” that is coinciding with massive governmental debt and deficit, polarized political parties full of too many politicians and too few statesmen, a still recovering global economy, and an upcoming presidential election year. None of these bode well for the situation in Texas, a state that is increasingly on a combat footing against Mexican cartel intrusions onto sovereign US soil.

The Document: On 25 July 2011, the National Security Staff released its Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security. The report is available at (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/nsc/transnational-crime) and can be accessed as a pdf or in html by using the links provided (1). The contents are as follows:

i. Definition

ii. Letter from President Barack Obama: Executive Summary;

I. Introduction,

II. Transnational Organized Crime: A Growing Threat to National and International Security,

III. Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Priority Actions;

1. Start at Home: Taking Shared Responsibility for Transnational Organized Crime,

2. Enhance Intelligence and Information Sharing,

3. Protect the Financial System and Strategic Markets against Transnational Organized Crime,

4. Strengthen Interdiction, Investigations, and Prosecutions,

5. Disrupt Drug Trafficking and Its Facilitation of Other Transnational Threats,

6. Build International Capacity, Cooperation, and Partnerships.

Key Statements:

a). The characteristics of transnational organized crime (TOC) may include that— “They attempt to gain influence in government, politics, and commerce through corrupt as well as legitimate means;”

b). “Criminal networks are not only expanding their operations, but they are also diversifying their activities, resulting in a convergence of transnational threats that has evolved to become more complex, volatile, and destabilizing. These networks also threaten U.S. interests by forging alliances with corrupt elements of national governments and using the power and influence of those elements to further their criminal activities.”

c). “In January 2010, the United States Government completed a comprehensive review of international organized crime—the first on this topic since 1995. Based on the review and subsequent reporting, the Administration has concluded that, in the intervening years, international—or transnational— organized crime has expanded dramatically in size, scope, and influence and that it poses a significant threat to national and international security.” 

Western Hemisphere Overview: “TOC networks—including transnational gangs—have expanded and matured, threatening the security of citizens and the stability of governments throughout the region, with direct security implications for the United States. Central America is a key area of converging threats where illicit trafficking in drugs, people, and weapons—as well as other revenue streams—fuel increased instability. Transnational crime and its accompanying violence are threatening the prosperity of some Central American states and can cost up to eight percent of their gross domestic product, according to the World Bank. The Government of Mexico is waging an historic campaign against transnational criminal organizations, many of which are expanding beyond drug trafficking into human smuggling and trafficking, weapons smuggling, bulk cash smuggling, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom. TOC in Mexico makes the U.S. border more vulnerable because it creates and maintains illicit corridors for border crossings that can be employed by other secondary criminal or terrorist actors or organizations. Farther south, Colombia has achieved remarkable success in reducing cocaine production and countering illegal armed groups, such as the FARC, that engage in TOC. Yet, with the decline of these organizations, new groups are emerging such as criminal bands known in Spanish as Bandas Criminales, or Bacrims.”

Analysis: This strategy was released less than three months ago and according to Bob Killebrew “…is in effect a replacement for the now-outdated U.S. strategy to combat terrorism. This is a good first step” (2).  While I agree it is a step in the right direction, the threat perceptions underlying it are overly traditionalist—some would even say woefully obsolete— and representative of static 20^th century thinking. I thus have very great concerns regarding the threat assumptions underlying the strategy since, if the baseline assumptions are faulty, then the rest of the strategy that is derived from those assumptions becomes highly suspect (3). Unfortunately, 21^st century ‘street realities’ of the last eleven years taking place in Mexico, in areas of Central America, and in other locales appear in no way to have influenced the threat perceptions underlying the strategy. At best, transnational organized crime is viewed as gaining ‘influence in governmental politics’, ‘forging alliances with corrupt elements of national governments’, and ‘threatening the security of citizens and the stability of governments throughout the region’ (within the context of some Central American states). Such perceptions are indicative of the primacy and immutability of the nation-state as a social and political form of human organization. TOC within this threat context is viewed much like bloated ticks feeding off of host states. They represent parasitical organizations drawing upon illicit, and at times licit, economies to sustain themselves. TOC, such as the Mexican cartels, could thus never criminalize, capture, or kill a host state—or a region or city within it— based on these threat perceptions. The emergence of a ‘criminal-state’ or a ‘new warmaking entity’ or the existence of a ‘criminal insurgency’ taking place within a state simply cannot be accounted for in a strategy derived from these threat perceptions. The governments and citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras should no doubt be comforted by the fact that they are only threatened with issues of stability and no more. While the strategy may serve to perpetuate the legalistic charade of the nation-state’s ‘monopoly on political violence’ and ‘control over its sovereign borders,’ it does a great disservice to the American people and others by not fully recognizing the TOC threat. Criminal-insurgencies are currently raging across Mexico, in areas of Central America, and in other locales (4). Cities and regions have been captured by de facto politicized cartel and gang entities with criminal para-states established by the Zetas, the Sinaloans, and other criminal organizations. This is representative of the blurring of crime and war ‘nightmare scenarios’ which have been debated since the 1990s and have since manifested themselves throughout the globe. Until US governmental threat perceptions mature—especially in strategic documents that outline our national policies— the cartel and gang threats we are now witnessing in the Western Hemisphere will continue to be misunderstood and underestimated.  

Notes 

All quotes without notes pertain to the White House strategy document.

1. Also see “Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Announcement of the Transnational Organized Crime Strategy”. Justice News. Monday, 25 July 2011, http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2011/ag-speech-110725.html.

2. Col Robert B. Killebrew, U.S. Army (Retired), “Crime & War.” Proceedings. October 2011: 26. This citation contains a note thanking Killebrew’s CNAS colleague Matt Irvine for his initial perception concerning it replacing the U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

3. My concerns are very different than those articulated by the TransBorder Project, a project of the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC. See Tom Barry, “U.S. Drug War Turns to Transnational Combat”. Border Lines. Wednesday, 3 August 2011, http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/us-drug-war-turns-to-transnational.html.

4. The developed construct is attributed to John P. Sullivan in 2008. Many of his writings on this subject first appeared in Small Wars Journal.