Los Zetas vs CDG: Reynosa, San Luis Potosi, Ciudad Victoria

How is it that convoys of heavily armed Zetas, at least four per vehicle, can travel into the heart of Reynosa and drive up and down the main thoroughfare of Hidalgo and not be met by anyone other than CDG gunmen?

Did they travel through state ministerial police and army roadblocks on the highways with impunity to reach Reynosa?

How can you have hours long city wide firefights in the middle of the day and no municipal police, no state of Tamaulipas SSP or AEI agents show their faces to defend the public?

And in Reynosa’s latest bout with anarchy on Tuesday August 3, how could the army and federal police show up in force hours after the first shots are fired?




Reynosa, Tuesday August 3, 2010
(SDP/El Universal)

The fighting began when a grenade was thrown at the unoccupied Solidaridad Tianguis at 6:00 am Tuesday morning on Hidalgo boulevard across the Sorianas big box store. Only minor structural damage was reported in this incident.

Sporadic gunfire was reported throughout the morning at different locations in the city between rival groups of Los Zetas and CDG gunmen. that gradually grew in intensity until 2:00 PM when major street fighting erupted, especially on the main thoroughfare of Hidalgo Boulevard, between cartel gunmen and the military.

At 2:00 PM the first street blockages were reported as gunmen, in now familiar form, hijacked large and small vehicles at gunpoint to set up blockades meant to deprive the authorities of freedom of movement.

The last of the street blockades were freed by 8:00 PM.

Continuous rifle fire, .50 caliber machinegun fire and many grenade detonations, up to 30 according to witnesses, filled the air from 2:00 PM until 6:00 PM. Several twitter messages complained of undisciplined fire control by the military that put the public at even further risk.

The afternoon clashes prompted the lockdown of the city as the Reynosa city government’s facebook and twitter pages warned citizens of the critical danger on the streets and closure of the International bridges over the Rio Grande to the U.S.

Unconfirmed sources including twitter and internet forums reported the miscarriage of one woman and severe injuries to a city electrical worker and a child.

The military and law enforcement did not announce any casualties or detentions. However witnesses to a major clash on Hidalgo boulevard reported the deaths of 5 gunmen in that location.






























Cerro de San Pedro, San Luis Potosi, Wednesday August 4, 2010
revista El Mundo de San Luis Potosi

Cerro de San Pedro is a beautiful jewel up in the mountains northeast of the city of San Luis Potosi. A popular weekend getaway for SLP's middle classes, it was the site of a gold mine founded the 16th century.

Driving into the town, one immediately feels they are in a miniature Real de Catorce.

There was a very different feeling driving into Cerro de San Pedro in the afternoon of Wednesday earlier this week. Police and army vehicles were scouring the town and the hillside roads in search of gunmen that had just attacked the small state police office located in the town.

The Los Zetas vs CDG war over control of the Tampico plaza has been spreading west into the sate of San Luis Potosi, first with clashes in the city of Rio Verde in June, then with the attack on Ciudad Valles last Friday that resulted in six police and two civilian deaths.

At 12:00 PM on Wednesday al least 12 armed men, possibly from the same band that attacked Ciudad Valles, entered Cerro de San Pedro on board two pickups and an SUV and proceeded to attack the police installation.

The armed group attacked the station with gunfire and at least one grenade before fleeing as groups of policemen arrived to reinforce the building .

One of the gunmen who was wearing a bulletproof vest was killed outside the police installation and a second gunman was arrested a short while after the attack.

The state police commander of the district surrounding Cerro de San Pedro was killed and a second police was seriously wounded.

The body of a resident of the town was also found and may have been abducted and killed by the gunmen shortly before the attack.






























This Thursday,in Tamaulipas, Mexico experienced the second car bomb attack targeting police forces. Sources in Tamaulipas state the most probable explanation for the attack is a strike by Los Zetas against state police forces that are said to be infiltrated and co-opted by the CDG (Gulf Cartel.)

Ciudad Victoria, Thursday August 4th 2010

A carbomb exploded this afternoon in the parking lot of the Public Safety Office Complex for the State of Tamaulipas, located on the highway Interejidal, northeast of Ciudad Victoria. There were no injuries reported in the bomb blast

According to a statement from the state Public Safety Department, the vehicle apparently,a white Tsuru, exploded at 5:20 PM while parked in the rear of the building where the State Secretariat of Public Security, State Police and the Rural Special Police have their offices

The vehicle, said Public Security Minister, Jose Ives Soberon, was parked at the rear of the building on the premises of the of the State rural police. The explosion damaged two rural police patrol units