Mexico Drug Gang Hits Cops with Car Bomb

(AP)  Members of a northern Mexico drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical technician and wounding nine people.

Federal police said Thursday's attack — which may be one of the first uses of an explosive-packed car in Mexico — was in retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day.

Seven officers and two civilians were wounded, said a state police source who was not authorized to be quoted by name. He said the compact passenger car had apparently been carrying some kind of explosive or flammable device when it rammed the police pickup trucks. The crash left charred wreckage.

Authorities were investigating what caused the vehicle to explode, and Mexico's attorney general said Friday that there was no evidence so far to support local media accounts that a bomb was involved.

"We have no evidence anywhere in the country of narcoterrorism," Arturo Chavez told reporters.

Federal police confirmed in a statement late Thursday that the car rammed the patrol vehicles, but were not immediately available to confirm what, if anything the car was carrying.

Police said Acosta Guerrero, 35, was the "operations leader" of the gang known as La Linea, which works for the Juarez drug cartel.

It said he was responsible for at least 25 killings, mainly of rival gang members, and also ordered attacks on police.

Drug gangs have previously attacked Mexican soldiers and law enforcement officers with grenades and powerful rifles, but seldom have been known to use explosives.

Farther south in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, gunmen killed the nephew of the governor-elect during a botched kidnapping, authorities said Thursday.

Mario Medina, nephew of Cesar Duarte, was shot in the back Wednesday as he tried to escape from his assailants in the state capital, also named Chihuahua, prosecutors' spokesman Eduardo Esparza said.

Medina, 42, was at his parents' business when the would-be kidnappers struck, Esparza said. Police had not discovered a motive.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in drug violence in Chihuahua state, most of them in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. There have been more than 23,000 killings throughout the country linked to drug violence since President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers and federal agents to drug hotspots in late 2006.

In the northern state of Nuevo Leon, authorities said Thursday that the bodies of four men who had been shot to death were found on a street in the affluent Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia.

The victims were bound with tape and blindfolded, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Nuevo Leon has seen an increase in drug violence that authorities say stems from a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men.

Mexican and U.S. officials say the Gulf cartel has aligned itself with the Sinaloa and La Familia gangs, which are seeking to wipe out the Zetas in northeastern Mexico.

In the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, police said they found the body of a man whose head and fingers had been cut off.

The body was found in a plastic bag in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and the head was found next to it.

In the coastal resort city of Acapulco, also in Guerrero, drug traffickers left a banner on a boulevard accusing local police of protecting Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a U.S.-born enforcer known as "La Barbie." The banner was signed "B.L.," an apparent reference to the remnants of the Beltran Leyva cartel, which split with Villarreal.

Also Thursday, the Mexican navy reported it found 8 metric tons of a precursor chemical used to make methamphetamines in shipping containers at the Pacific coast seaport of Manzanillo.

[magnumdr]

And these are some of the scumballs that we are letting into America illegally. Now what do you have to say about the illegal immigrants that come here!

[LIBERALS-lie]

They arent BAD.Its our "unfair immigration policies" that make them act out. So really its our own fault...just ask the current regime in power.

[Perish1]

Just more reasons to protect our borders and be sure we know what is coming and going. We don't need the violence spilling over.

[jimwa9z]

This will all cease when we stop getting high.

[AttentionDeficit]

Or when we stop prohibiting it

[Bill7021]

It?s past time that we stopped all financial aid to Mexico. Any money sent to that corrupt joke of a country winds up in the hands of drug lords and political criminals.

And it?s also time to pull the plug on the criminal illegal alien in the White House. He refuses to control the border while bowing and scraping to third world dictators like Calderon.

Our traitorous White House and Congress sat there and listened while the president of a foreign country, Felipe Calderon, insulted America. Calderon blamed America for allowing guns into his country, he trashed Arizona for attempting to control Mexican illegal aliens coming into that state, and he demanded that we pass amnesty for illegal aliens. He also managed to beg for money. And for that disgusting display of disrespect, he gets a standing ovation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YobJc5cnk68

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/20/mexicos-calderon-takes-case-congress/

There is as more criminal activity going on in Washington D.C. than there is in Ciudad Ju?rez.

No amnesty and no ?comprehensive immigration reform?. Lock down the border NOW and then round up and deport those who are in this country illegally. Only then can we discuss ?immigration reform?.

We must return to a policy of legal immigration that rewards those who intend to assimilate into American society. Immigrants must learn our history, learn our culture, and learn to speak English or they should go back where they came from.

[Bill7021]

Why should any American spend tourist dollars in that uncivilized hellhole when our own country is in economic trouble? Visit the Gulf States. Visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Visit the beautiful Rocky Mountain States.

Spring break on South Padre Island is far safer and more fun than getting ripped off in overpriced Mexican tourist traps like Cancun and Acapulco.

There is absolutely no reason risk going to a country that cannot protect its own citizens. The Caribbean Islands are far superior to anything Mexico has to offer.

[miukitty]

Where is your head the reason people love going to Mexico especiall white Americans, is because of the drugs, Johns, love Mexico, what do they care about is party time. Who really wants to see a bunch of rocks, South Padre Island, where in the hell is that? Most of those going to Mexico don't really want protection, from what they are there for. DRUGS>>>.

[Bill7021]

Americans need to wake up and realize that we are in a war with this third world cesspool.

These people break into our country to steal, kill, and rape, with no intention of becoming citizens or assimilating into American society. They disrespect our laws and our culture while flying their flag above the American flag.

They believe that the Border States belong to them and they are determined to take them back: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=1642

This flood of illegal aliens, if left unchecked, will destroy our country.

We must lock the border down. Finish the fence and put our military down there. Our military is all over the world providing security for countries that should be protecting themselves. Quit giving these governments a free ride and use our military to protect America for a change.

Once the border is secure, round up those who are in this country illegally and send them back where they came from.

Return to a sensible immigration policy that rewards those who wish to assimilate into American society. We need productive, patriotic citizens, not third world criminals.

[miukitty]

Don't you know that there are those that do those things here every minute of every day without seize, and they are American citizens as white as your unowhat!!!America is the mother of third world countries. We taught all those other countries to do criminal activites, don't you watch the movies. BOY!!!!you really need to learn something.

[Bill7021]

The Mexican government has always been extremely corrupt and incompetent, but is now totally out of control and is being taken over by the drug cartels. The Mexican authorities are just as criminal as the cartels and not only cannot but will not protect American citizens. To them, Americans are the enemy.

American tourists would be just as safe in Somalia. We need to stay out of Mexico and spend our tourist dollars in the United States. Forget Cancun and Acapulco and explore the Caribbean Islands.

[samuellenn]

But the borders are safe

[plunderpower]

Drug runners, weapons runners, Cartel Members, and other assorted criminals are not interested in voting for Obama and friends in 2012. They want money, just like some politicians we all know.

[BTZ5150]

A few people ahve it right here, AS LONG AS DRUGS ARE ILLEGAL IN THE US, MEXICO'S PROBLEMS WILL CONTINUE TO WORSEN! Securing the border would be a great idea, but it is another example of treating the symptom rather than the cause. Using Mexico's military is another idea, but as long as the profits from drug running are so great in a relatively poor country, the criminals will keep doing what they do and there will be many more coming along to replace anyone who is arrested or killed. Yet, through all of this and through all that is being done in the US for the last 40 years, drugs are still readily available anywhere in the US, from big cities to small towns. The "war on drugs" is a complete failure and a joke!

Didn't we learn ANYTHING from our totally failed experiment with alcohol prohibition? The booze kept right on flowing and all sorts of small-time criminals were given the means to make the big-time. The war on drugs is doing the same thing, just on a much larger scale. We have spent billions and billions on this failed "war on drugs" and have put MILLIONS of people behind bars, many for life. Many of our big cities are now overrun by gangs who's main source of income is the ridiculously easy money to be made from dealing drugs. Now, we face an even more ominous threat, the rapidly deteriorating situation Mexico, again totally fueled by the easy money that we make available by continuing our prohibition of drugs.

[plunderpower]

The black market is in direct conflict with every major US corporation or bank. They are all in Mexico. Like it or not, it is a complex problem needing complex solutions. The cartels are entrenched like cucarachas and the economy in Mexico is being negatively effected by every U.S. tax hike and business downturn. Your Anti-prohibition argument falls flat as cartels fight to corner the business period.

[BTZ5150]

I fail to see what exactly your logic is behind saying that my anti-prohibition arguement falls flat, based upon cartels cornering the market, US corporations or whatever. Could you clarify that?

If you would have asked me several years ago if I'd ever consider the legalization of illegal drugs, I would have certainly said no way. Part of my change of opinion comes from my friendship with a retired law enforcement officer who spent many years working in the "war on drugs". He told me flat out that we are continuing to lose the war and that there is no way we'll ever "win" that war, unless we choose to start giving up some of our most basic civil liberties to do so.

The criminal drug supply business is driven by one thing, the huge demand for these drugs from US citizens. If we choose to legalize drugs and remove the demand through illegal channels, the cartels in Mexico and the illegal channels here in the US fall apart. All one has to do is take a look at our own history and what happened during prohibition to see that it doesn't stop the flow and that it also provides a huge profit motive for criminal activity.