Heating up in the Northeastern Border States

Night of Terror in Nuevo Leon

As if it was a continuation of what happened Thursday morning in Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas, several cities in Nuevo León suffered similar attacks during the night of Thursday and early in the morning yesterday.

Armed groups carried out attacks in Monterrey, Guadalupe and Cadereyta, burning several businesses and leaving an innocent bystander dead.

The first incident occurred around 2200 hours when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the heart of Monterrey, where they also attacked a car dealership. A total of four vehicles were completed destroyed by fire.

A few minutes later gunmen arrived at the community of San Jerónimo and at the edge of Jose Garza Ramirez where they deployed a grenade at a gas station. The device exploded about two meters from the fuel pumps.

At the same time a chase was reported where a shootout ensued in the town of Cadereyta, where the gunmen eventually attacked a number of area businesses.

Several heavily armed men shot up several businesses of a shopping center that included a pizzeria, Church's Chicken, Ice Cream parlor Sultana, bank Banorte, and other establishments.

The unfortunate event cost the life of an innocent man José Luis, 41, who was inside a parked car in the parking lot Church's chicken, and appeared to be waiting for his daughter who works at the restaurant. The man received multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Another employee of the restaurant was injured.

Right before 2300 hours the Municipal Police of Guadalupe managed to intercept an armed group of men traveling in a white Honda CRV that resulted in a brief pursuit but eventually the police managed to apprehend six criminals and rescued a person that had been abducted.

"we came across them, we tried to stop them but the occupants fled on their vehicle. They refused to stop causing officers to pursue the vehicle until we managed to to stop them. We had been watching them closely because they appeared to be following several police cars," said a police source.

The gunmen were in possession of an Uzi submachine gun, a 9mm HK rifle, a .308 rifle, one AK-47 assault rifle, four bulletproof vests, radio equipment, cell phones, cash, and a machine to count currency.

At approximately 0300 hours sicarios arrived at the Soriana store located in the streets Juarez and Lerdo de Tejada, in the town of Guadalupe, and the sicarios deployed a fragmentation grenade against the store and fired several gunshots at the building.

Around 04:00 hours gunmen arrived at the Ford auto dealership Car One, and deployed a fragmentation grenade.

The attack occurred at the intersection of Alfonso Reyes and Lazaro Cardenas, where they also deployed grenades at the auto dealership of Land Rover and Jaguar.

The attack on the dealerships damaged several vehicles and the building.

So the terrorist acts are increasingly and becoming more frequent in several of the northeastern border states, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. So far the government can't provide an explanation of the increase of violence in the area and have been unable to prevent it.

Mexican Marines Operating in Tamaulipas

Today the Secretary of the Navy of Mexico issued an official statement revealing that on April 20 the Mexican marines managed to capture several sicarios in two actions in the state of Tamaulipas.

The first incident occurred in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, where the marines managed to capture Edgar Oswaldo Silva Padilla and Juan Pablo Boca Negra González, and in addition they also seized an SUV that had been previously reported as stolen.

During a search of the stolen vehicle the military also found three firearms, five magazines from different calibers, 303 rounds of ammunition of different calibers, three kilograms of Marijuana and 24 strips of spikes used to flatten vehicle's tires.

IN the mean time in the neighborhood of Universidad Poniente in Tampico the marines stopped another stolen SUV that was occupied by Ricardo David de la Cruz Anguiano and Carlos Enrique Clemente.

Review by EFE
Three people died in a string of gangland incidents across the northern border states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, Mexican authorities said Friday.

A laborer was killed and a restaurant waiter was wounded when assailants wielding assault rifles shot up business establishments on a main square in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon, the State Investigations Agency said.

Thursday night’s shooting spree came two days after federal police and soldiers arrested 40 Cadereyta municipal cops on suspicion they were colluding with drug traffickers.

Shortly after midnight Thursday, attackers hurled Molotov cocktails at three auto dealerships in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon’s capital and home to some of Mexico’s leading corporations.

In the neighboring state of Tamaulipas, one gunmen and one soldier were killed Thursday in a three-sided battle involving the military and members of two rival drug gangs.

Troops intervened as contingents from the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels exchanged shots in a commercial district of Miguel Aleman, the defense department said in a statement.

The soldiers captured 11 gunmen, seizing 20 rifles, two handguns, eight grenades, 7,693 rounds of ammunition and four vehicles, according to the statement.

Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas have been rocked by a war among drug traffickers cartels for control of smuggling routes into the United States.

The violence has intensified since the February 2010 appearance in Monterrey of giant banners heralding an alliance of the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia drug cartels against Los Zetas.

The cartels arrayed against Los Zetas blame the group’s involvement in kidnappings, armed robbery and extortion for discrediting “true drug traffickers” in the eyes of ordinary Mexicans willing to tolerate the illicit trade as long as the gangs stuck to their own unwritten rule against harming innocents.

A total of 15,270 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year, and more than 36,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006, deploying tens of thousands of soldiers, marines and Federal Police officers across the country.