The U.S. State Department warned yesterday that the Juarez Cartel may target its consulate office in Ciudad Juarez -- just over the border from El Paso, TX -- or other U.S. interests as reported by Mary Forgione for the Los Angeles Times. The "emergency message" states:
Information has come to light that suggests a cartel may be targeting the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez or U.S. Ports of Entry. In the past, cartels have been willing to utilize car bombs in attacks.
Earlier this month a drug cartel in Ciudad Juarez spray painted a public warning to U.S. DEA agents as reported by The Associated Press: "Gringos (D.E.A.). We know where you are and we know who you are and where you go. We are going to chop off your (expletive) heads."
The U.S. government warned last April that "its employees and citizens could be the targets of drug gangs in three Mexican states" as reported by Nicholas Casey and Jose de Cordoba for The Wall Street Journal: "the little-noticed warning . . . said U.S. officials had 'information that Mexican criminal gangs may intend to attack U.S. law-enforcement officers or U.S. citizens in the near future in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí.'"
The warnings are not idle. Last February ICE agent Jaime Zapata was killed and his partner wounded in a shooting ambush in the state of San Luis Potosí, and in March 2010 three Americans tied to the U.S. Consulate were killed in a shooting ambush in Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua. U.S. and Mexican officials allege that Los Zetas was behind the San Luis Potosi incident, and the Barrio Azteca gang, an enforcement crew for the Juarez cartel, was behind the Ciudad Juarez incident.
Moreover, the Mexican drug cartels have murdered U.S. law enforcement officials on the north side of the border. In December 2010 border patrol agent Brian Terry was shot and killed after encountering several suspects in a southern Arizona smuggling corridor.
The drug smugglers rake in $50 billion a year by peddling their product throughout the United States, and they already have proven willing to kill anybody on either side of the border in protecting their racket.
And yet President Obama sees no need to secure the border, and no evidence of spillover violence.
