'Unprecedented' level of violence in Mexico: FBI

confrontation with members of a gang in Mexico
© AFP/File Antonio Palacios

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Using unusually blunt language, FBI Director Robert Mueller told US legislators on Capitol Hill Wednesday that there is an "unprecedented" level of violence in Mexico linked to the country's drug wars.

"I would not call it a full-scale war," Mueller told members of the House of Representatives as he discussed his agency's 2012 budget.

"I would say there are full-scale warring factions that utilize homicide as a mechanism of retaliation, staking out one's turf, retribution, that have contributed substantially to the number of deaths in Mexico," Mueller said.

There have been some 35,000 homicides in the past four years, Mueller said.

"I think it's fair to say that it's unprecedented," he said. "The last couple of years, I think, have been particularly bad."
The frank words are uncommon for a senior US official: the US ambassador to Mexico resigned in March after Mexican President Felipe Calderon said diplomatic cables written by the envoy -- in which he depicted the Mexican military leadership as unprepared for the war on drugs -- damaged bilateral ties.

And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in September had to back off of comments that the Mexican drug cartels "are showing more and more indices of insurgencies," and that the country is "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, when the narcotraffickers controlled certain parts of the country."

Even though the Mexican military and police "have undertaken substantial efforts" to address the violence, "it's certainly not under control at this point," Mueller said.

The FBI director said the investigation is continuing into the murder of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot dead on February 15 in northern Mexico. A second ICE agent was wounded in the ambush.

"We have had access to the evidence from the scene. We have had access to the scene itself. And we've been working with the Mexican authorities to make certain that everyone involved in that sees justice," Mueller said.

It was the first death of a US agent in Mexico since the abduction and murder of Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in 1985.

Mexican police said Tuesday they had captured a member of the Zetas drug cartel who allegedly participated in the February attack on the ICE agents.

Mexico and the United States share a 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border and have strong economic and demographic ties.

About 95 percent of the estimated cocaine flow towards the United States transits through Mexico, according to a March State Department report. The report said that Mexico was also a major supplier of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines to the US.

Washington has promised training and equipment to Mexico's security forces under the three-year, $1.3-billion Merida Initiative to tackle organized crime.

Separately, experts meeting at a global anti-drug summit in Cancun said that that drug cartels were expanding operations to Central America and even Africa.

Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador were especially affected, said Mexican Secretary of Security Genaro Garcia Luna. He credited the Mexico's crackdown for squeezing out the cartels.

The cartels were also moving operations to west Africa with the goal of smuggling drugs to Europe, according to a report from the UN's International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

The head of Colombia's police, General Oscar Naranjo, said that Mexicans and Colombians linked to the cartels have been captured in Freetown, Sierra Leone, setting up safe houses.

Seven Colombian drug cartel leaders were captured in mid-2010 in Liberia, said US Drug Enforcement Agency chief Michele Leonhart.

Europe has become the world's second most important market for cocaine, according to the INCB report.

The report singled out Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and France as growing markets.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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US drones 'over Mexico to track drug lords'

© AFP/File Joel Saget

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has begun sending unarmed drones deep into Mexico to gather intelligence about powerful drug cartels in order to assist local authorities, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper said US President Barack Obama and his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon formally agreed to the high-altitude missions in a meeting on March 3 but have kept it secret because of possible political and legal constraints.

It cited unnamed US officials as saying that the drones gathered vital information leading to Mexico's arrest of several suspects in last month's killing of US immigration and customs agent Jaime Zapata, 32.

Such a program would suggest rising concerns about the Mexican government's ability to bring the cartels to heel through a massive military crackdown launched by Calderon in 2006.

Since then more than 34,600 people have been killed in drug-related violence that has engulfed the country, especially areas along the US border where rival gangs battle over lucrative trade routes to the north.

"It wasn’t that long ago when there was no way the DEA could conduct the kinds of activities they are doing now," Mike Vigil, a retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Times.

"And the only way they’re going to be able to keep doing them is by allowing Mexico to have plausible deniability."

The Times quoted a senior US official as saying that all "counternarcotics activities were conducted at the request and direction of the Mexican government."

It quoted both Mexican and US officials as saying that Mexico has been turning a blind eye to US wiretapping of the telephones of drug suspects and to US agents carrying weapons in violation of longstanding Mexican restrictions.

Mexican and US officials said that their joint efforts had led to the capture or killing of at least 20 high-level drug traffickers, including 12 in the last year alone, the Times reported.

However, past high-profile arrests have had little impact on the ground.

On Tuesday a six-truck convoy of gunmen pursuing a marked man shot dead six people, including two children aged two and six, during a rampage through the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco, state officials said.

And in northeastern Mexico a car bomb exploded outside a police station and a children's playground, wounding a woman and a police officer.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

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