Felipe Carrillo Puerto elementary school epicenter of a two-hour gun-and-grenade battle

Felipe Carrillo Puerto elementary school in this bustling border city was open as usual Friday, but fears of gangland violence kept all but a handful of its 960 students at home.The low-walled school compound was at the epicenter of a two-hour gun-and-grenade battle this week between Mexican troops and drug gang gunmen — a terrifying episode that served to illustrate how Mexico’s gangland violence touches even its youngest, most vulnerable citizens.“We’re going to see Monday how many students show up,” said teacher Luis Enrique Mora, 32. “Many are going to be traumatized. They’re never going to forget.”Reynosa, across the Rio Grande from the McAllen area, is home to scores of foreign-owned manufacturing plants and the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful gangs. But the city has been relatively peaceful until just recently.“Criminality has always existed here, but we’ve never experienced it like this before,” said Martha Aguirre, 61, the principal of the Carrillo Puerto school. “You can’t tell when something like this will happen, because the bad men feel they are lords of the streets.”Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico has deployed more than 40,000 soldiers and paramilitary police against narcotics smuggling gangs. About 9,000 people have been killed in gangland violence since then, including 80 soldiers and 500 police.Tuesday’s shootout in the school’s upscale neighborhood started about 10 a.m., shortly before recess, when federal police stopped an SUV nearby and the gunmen inside opened fire. As police moved in on a house where they believed they would find a gang leader, other gunmen fired indiscriminately in the streets, presumably to divert attention. Army and gangland reinforcements swooped in. The battle escalated.The school’s 20 teachers ordered the children to the classroom floors, shoving upturned desks against walls and doors in hopes of stopping stray bullets. “We were all crying. We were so afraid,” said Andrea, a 9-year-old third-grader who came to school Friday. “They could kill us all.”Grenades exploded in the street. Bullets tore through the school’s windows, lodged in the benches near the front gate where children wait to be picked up by their parents.“I just kept praying that grenades wouldn’t explode inside the school grounds,” Mora, the teacher, said. “I was just thinking of calming the children.”Dozens of soldiers poured onto the school patio as the fighting moved a few blocks away to a parking lot of a shopping center that includes an H-E-B supermarket and a Chili’s restaurant.
None of the children at the school was harmed.Federal officials say five gunmen were killed and seven injured. Press reports said five federal policemen also died, but the government said only seven officers were injured and one civilian killed.“Those of us living all of this up close feel protected by the army,” said Aguirre, the principal. Not everyone agrees. Demonstrations against the army blocked international bridges Tuesday in Reynosa and other cities bordering Texas and shut downtown streets in Monterrey, 120 miles south of the border.Mexican officials and many residents of Reynosa dismiss such protests as paid for by the gangsters themselves. During a speech in Monterrey on Thursday, Calderon accused the protesters of treason.“We are living a defining moment,” he said. “Mexico confronts a historic challenge to become a secure country, a challenge to truly transform itself into a country of law and order.“Mexicans must close ranks in our army’s struggle against the common enemy.”

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"SHOT" IN THE "HEAD" AND "DUMPED"

Four people believed to be Americans were "SHOT" IN THE "HEAD" AND "DUMPED" in a notorious drug-smuggling area in northern Mexico near the California border, Mexican police said on Monday.Police in the beach town of Rosarito, across the border from San Diego, said they discovered the bodies of three men and a woman on Sunday in an abandoned car in a remote patch of scrubland near the Pacific coast.Police concluded the victims were U.S. citizens because the vehicle had California license plates, the men appeared to be "BLACK," the woman was "WHITE" and a U.S. driver’s license was found in the car, the spokesman said.Murders have jumped in Mexico this year, the bulk of them linked to a war between rival drug cartels and security forces that has killed some 1,300 people across Mexico since January. But it is unusual for foreigners to be the victims.

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Victor Manuel Varela Jr suspected gun runner was arrested by agents from the Bureau of Alcoho, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives this week.

Victor Manuel Varela Jr., 23, of Tuscon, AZ was taken into custody by the Arizona U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force as part of Operation Gunrunner.
suspected gun runner was arrested by agents from the Bureau of Alcoho, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives this week.
Investigators believe the alleged gun-runner carried the guns into Mexico at the Columbus, N.M. border crossing and were intended for use in the ongoing battles between rival cartels and with Mexican law enforcement.The arrest follows an investigation conducted by the ATF and the Arizona Attorney General's Office, and investigators believe it will disrupt a group of gun smugglers that were allegedly trafficking the arms to a Mexican drug cartel.This investigation was initiated based on information that Varela, through a network of straw purchasers, had acquired a number of firearms, including several .50 caliber "Barrett" rifles, for the purpose of supplying them to Mexican cartel members.
A number of the firearms attributed to this group have been recovered by law enforcement and military entities of the Mexican government who were mobilized to address the escalating level of violence in the Juarez, Chihuahua and Palomas, areas of Mexico.Intelligence received throughout the course of this investigation, which implicates persons located in Mexico is being shared with members of Mexican law enforcement in conjunction with the ATF Mexico City Office. Varela was remanded to the custody of the Maricopa County Jail, and is being charged by the Arizona Attorney General's Office with control of a criminal enterprise, conspiracy, fraud, forgery and weapons violations.

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14 bodies buried in the backyard of a house in Ciudad Juárez

The federal attorney general’s office said agents had uncovered 14 bodies buried in the backyard of a house in Ciudad Juárez, a city that has gained infamy for its gangland slayings and the unsolved murders of hundreds of women. The agents began digging at the house in the neighborhood of La Cuesta, across the border from El Paso, last month, after a drug raid. They first found the dismembered bodies of nine victims, some of whom died more than five years ago. Five more bodies were unearthed in the last week. Prosecutors have yet to determine why the victims were killed, but they noted that agents found 3,700 pounds of marijuana in the initial raid

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Arrested four police officers

Federal agents arrested four police officers just south of the border with Texas on Saturday and were investigating where they got their guns, Mexican police said.
In a joint operation, federal police and soldiers arrested the officers early Saturday morning in the city of Nuevo Laredo across the border from Laredo, Texas, said a spokesman for Mexico's Public Safety Department who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
"The army has stepped in to investigate the origin of their weapons," he said.
Mexican radio station Formato 21 said the officers had guns that weren't registered with their unit in the border state of Tamaulipas.
It wasn't immediately clear if the four officers were being investigated for corruption, which is widespread in Mexico, particularly in states like Tamaulipas plagued by organized crime.

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One person has been killed and four others wounded

One person has been killed and four others wounded in a shootout between armed gunmen and the police in downtown Cancun, Mexico.
The shooting took place about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Cancun's world popular tourist area when police went to help a man claiming to be followed by gunmen, state prosecutor Luis Canche said.
The assailants entered a house and began shooting and setting off grenades. The man killed had a grenade in hand, Canche said.
''This is clearly related to organized crime,'' Canche said.
He also reported that the man who called the police and three other people, including two women, were critically injured.
Colombian drug traffickers usually drop off cocaine at Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, where Cancun is located, and then the Mexican cartels transfer the narcotics to the US.

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Once in Mexico, these weapons are worth at least double those prices, and in some cases as much as triple or more,

With over 2,100 deaths between January and October 2007 related to drug trafficking and the use of weapons purchased in the US, Mexico pins its hopes on the future success of the Merida Initiative to combat drug and gun trafficking.Mexican authorities now estimate that during the administration of former Mexican president Vicente Fox (2000 to 2006), some 2,000 guns per day entered Mexico. That works out to about 1.4 guns per minute. During that same period, the Fox administration seized 8,088 guns of the estimated 4,380,000 that entered the country, representing 0.18 percent of all the arms illegally smuggled into Mexico over six years, according to Mexican daily La Reforma. These salesmen and strawmen are the primary sources of illegal weapons flowing south, which they sell or hand off to gun traffickers who generally group the shipments at specific border crossings. Once in Mexico, weapons smugglers are set to make thousands on their merchandise.
"A used AK-47 may sell for around [US$] 400 and up," Litzman told ISN Security Watch. He added that an AR-15 could sell for US$800 to US$2,000, depending on the model and age of the weapon as well as other options such as the scope, stock or trigger guard.
Once in Mexico, these weapons are worth at least double those prices, and in some cases as much as triple or more, according to the ATF. One AK-47 purchased in Arizona for US$500 might go for as much as US$1,500 or more once it crosses the border.
At border crossings, Mexican customs agents are in the best position to detect smuggled weapons, but their situation is a difficult one. Many are given the well known choice of plata o plomo. "take the bribe or take a bullet." This is the clear message Mexican organized crime groups send those who patrol the Mexican side of border crossings, known as "plazas."
In February this year, a Mexican customs agent stopped a truck in Matamoros, a town across the border from Brownsville, Texas, under the control of Mexico's Gulf Cartel. The agent seized a load of weapons including 17 grenades, 18 rifles and 17 pistols. The next day he was killed with an AK-47.
The Mexican military, since its deployment to troubled spots in central and northern Mexico, has had some success seizing smuggled weapons. On 13 October, soldiers seized a weapons cache in central Tamaulipas state, located on the Mexico-Texas border. The public list of seized weapons included 11 AK-47 rifles, 13 AR-15 rifles and over 700 clips of ammunition. The Mexican daily El Milenio reported that one grenade launcher, powerful enough to destroy a tank, was also recovered.
But a review of Mexican reports reveals that such large seizures are limited. Finding weapons left at the scene of a crime is more common. Mexican officials have opined that hit men leave the weapons behind for two reasons: They do not want to be found with the weapons in the future and it is easy for them to obtain more.

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