AFPPHOTO:El Diario
Fifteen people, including a 10-year-old child, died in two separate armed attacks in Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez, local officials said Friday.
Nine men and one woman died in a shootout in a busy bar near a border post with the United States overnight Thursday, according to a spokesman for the attorney general's office of Chihuahua state, where Juarez lies.
Witnesses said 16 armed masked men entered "El Castillo" bar, near an international bridge which links the city to El Paso, Texas, and fired indiscriminately.
Early Friday, a group of men armed with assault weapons attacked a nearby food stall where four men and a 10-year-old child were eating, killing them all, said a local police office who requested anonymity.
Ciudad Juarez, with 1.2 million inhabitants, is Mexico's most violent city and registered more than 3,100 killings last year alone.
Drug gangs, particularly linked to the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels, are blamed for much of the violence in battles for control of lucrative drug trafficking routes into the United States.
UPDATE:Several people who were at "El Castillo" said the attack happened less than 5 minutes after Federal police finished a "routine search" of the premises and customers for firearms.
According to witnesses, no weapons were found.
Source: BDN
Photos: Bar El Castillo
4 men including a vendor and his ten year son were attacked and killed by gunmen while eating breakfast at a local stand, just two blocks from the bar El Castillo.
Marc
ReplyDeleteWhy do reporters always have to follow the same line of thinking based on authority, reporting incidents as drug gangs turf war, this is terrorism and lawlessness, this is a break down of civil society. It's about extortion, it's about cultural environment (i.e. criminality world view held by many of the City's citizens to get ahead in life,) it's about delegitimization of the Mexican Government, This is worse then a war, for no prisoners are taken, this is hell. 35,000 people killed in this drug war? What about all the missing people, do they count? why do you as reporters have to follow the line and reasoning espoused by the officials, knowing very well, that the number of dead and missing surpasses the official tally.
This is just insane, they need to put a fence around this town and search everyone, but that is a stupid statment. How can so many narco's run around and do these things without being seen. Does the Mexican government work one day and the Narco's work the next day, how is it so many military, federal and state police can't stop this? Probably the answer is MONEY I can't understand a convoy of 5 to 50 new trucks could enter any town without being seen and leave the same way. Where I live if a fly farts everybody in town knows it, what a difference
ReplyDeleteLet me call up my old amigos from Vietnam, called Black Horse the 11th ACR and this shit would end real quick. Some times the old ways are the best an APC, 1 50 cal, 2 M60's, and 50 cases of hot beer and it don't mean nothing baby, body count and ears, ace of spades in the forehead
ReplyDeleteT_R_C
ReplyDeleteLittle or no effort is put into reporting in Juarez anymore. The El Paso Times acts like they knew nothing and could have actually heard the gun shots.
I don't get the feel that this bar incident was a narco turf battle. The Feds search the bar patrons for guns and drugs and there is none. Then the hit squad comes in and kills 10. Come on, i really don't think narco's are that cowardly. Federal cops, the military, the ultra wealthy, and/or business competition, maybe.
I'm really getting the fell that some of the above mentioned groups are using the "narco war" as a cover to create a really unlevel playing field for their advantage.
Marc, your point is well taken on the missing also. Especially in Juarez via the military and all the police forces disappearing people to never be seen again.
Agreed, T_R_C, however, perhaps, just perhaps, the events are unrelated. Maybe the police patrolled,found nothing, then left, not at the behest of any group of all. But if history is any indicator of behaviour, their patrol smells like an "all clear" to someone who fears discovery if fired upon.
ReplyDeleteImjustagirl
it's not exatcly a narco turf war this time, it sounds more like a byproduct of the extortion business, the owner didn't pay, and this is what happens. Or the owner paid the wrong person/group. I seriously doubt the army, feds, municipals, (acting as such) would be massacring people in bars. That's ridiculous. The words sound trite, but I feel so much empathy for the people of Juarez, I'd like to see a US backed program to move people without resources elsewhere and set them up. I see baseball stadiums being built, and all this bullshit in US, and people are being terrorized just across the line. it's an atrocity and an embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteusa lost at vietnam like they are losing this war yes they give billions of dollars for this war
ReplyDeleteAlas, all Mexican people are currently living in a "natural state" if you know Hobbes... "The life of mankind in his natural state is nasty, brutish and short..."
ReplyDeleteT_R_C
ReplyDeleteI would love to have those CocaCola chairs and table in that picture. The bullet holes authenticate them huh?
J, your point is well taken and it could also be bar competition. With the disappeared in Juarez I am getting a more governmental sinister nature though. This event is probably as you say.
Imjustagirl, never give the police in Mexico the benefit of the doubt because they are 95% of the time directly involved. By no means are all their cops dirty, but with most criminal events, they are directly involved. Especially the federal cops and military. The same goes for the state police.
Go to Narconews.com and search the House of Death 6 years ago and you will see who the Juarez Cartel backbone was, "the State Police and Municipal" Their involvement in Juarez is nothing new.
The AA is doing all of this because this places are La Lineas stores and theyre trying to get it shut down.
ReplyDelete