Dozens dead in Monterrey terrorist attack

photos courtesy of 066mty Twitter feed


In what can only be regarded as a terrorist attack by suspected drug cartel hitmen, an establishment known as the Casino Royale located in the municipality of San Pedro in the Monterrey metropolitan area was attacked this afternoon resulting in a confirmed death count of 53 victims.

Ten wounded survivors have been accounted for in addition to an unknown number of unharmed survivors. First responders are credited with saving lives by knocking down walls of the establishment.

Different versions of the attack are stating that either incidiary grenades were used or that the interior of the establishment was doused with gasoline and set on fire.

According to authorities the number of fatalities is expected to climb.

Frantic requests by persons searching for friends and relatives flooded social media sites.

Nuevo Leon Governor Rodrigo Medina stated in an interview that tonight authorities are concentrating on the search for more victims and the identification of the bodies recovered so far.

The Governor stated that the investigation of the attack with the help of federal authorities will commence after the site is secured.

In the interview Medina stated that 6 attackers travelling in 2 vehicles were involved but their identities or links to criminal groups are unknown at this time.

President Calderon sent his condolences via his Twitter page to the victims of this "act of terror". He added that "these repugnant acts motivate us to persevere in this fight against these criminal gangs that have no scruples. All our support goes to Nuevo Leon."

This latest attack follows last night's attacks on casinos owned by Jorge hank Rhon in the northern Mexican cities of Reynosa and Saltillo, in the states of Tamaulipas and Coahuila respectively.

Last night in Saltillo, a "Caliente" casino was attacked by gunmen at 11:15PM. Almost simultaneously a grenade exploded outside another "Caliente" casino in Reynosa.

One person was reported injured in Saltillo.

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Forget Cliff Diving, Acapulco Now Known as Hot Spot in Mexico's Drug War

The days of jet set vacationing in Acapulco are long gone, but the Mexican resort city is once again in the news, this time for drug violence. It is one of the few tourist spots in Mexico suffering from public shootouts.

By: Patrick Corcoran

Moises Montero, aka 'The Korean', was arrested this month as the alleged leader of the ' Independent' drug cartel of Acapulco. He is suspected in the kidnapping and killing of 20 Mexican tourists in Acapulco in 2010.

While many of Mexico’s tourist areas have remained separate from the bouts of drug violence buffeting the country, the popular resort city of Acapulco has emerged as one of the new hot spots of organized crime.

A bloody week in which more than two dozen people were killed, and five decapitated bodies were found around the city, is the latest marker of Acapulco’s decline.

As Excelsior reports, many of those murdered in the resort were taxi drivers, who often work as lookouts for one drug gang or another. On the year, 42 cab drivers have been murdered in the city, according to figures from the newspaper Reforma.

The recent wave of violence has led to a broader spike in crimes against the population in this port city, including people unconnected to organized crime.

Twenty-three local gasoline stations shut their doors for three hours on Friday to protest against increased extortion demands, while authorities reported a 20-fold rise in car robberies along the famed Autopista del Sol, or Highway of the Sun, which connects Acapulco to Mexico City. After a series of robberies on shops last week, a handful of jewelers in the city’s downtown announced a weekend shutdown to take a stand against the violence.

As of early August, 650 people had been killed in Acapulco in 2011, making it perhaps the bloodiest big city in Mexico after Juarez.

Acapulco’s body count has been strikingly high for a number of years.

As a key entryway for South American cocaine, the city has long been an attractive piece of real estate for drug gangs, with agents of the Sinaloa Cartel battling the Zetas as far back as 2005. But breakdowns in the coherence of the hegemonic networks in Mexico have transformed Acapulco from the site of a battle between two competing gangs to an anarchic mess of newer groups.

Much of the recent surge in violence stems from battles between the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (known as CIDA for its initials in Spanish), which is made up of the remains of the network run by Edgar Valdez Villarreal until his arrest in September 2010, and the South Pacific Cartel, a newly emerging gang that is loosely affiliated with the Beltran Leyvas.

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Mexican journalist Humberto Millan Salazar found dead

An abducted Mexican journalist has been found shot dead north of Culiacan, in northwestern Sinaloa state.

Humberto Millan Salazar, who edited an online newspaper and presented a news programme on local radio, had been kidnapped by armed men on Wednesday.

The US-based journalists' welfare group Committee to Protect Journalists says 58 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992.

It says 25 of those were murdered in direct reprisal for their work.

Mr Millan Salazar, 53, was stopped by masked armed men as he was leaving his house in a residential area of Culiacan on Wednesday.

He was on his way to the Culiacan studios of Radio Formula, where he presented the morning news programme.

He was also the editor of online newspaper A Discusion.

Deadly profession

According to the United Nations, Mexico is the most dangerous country for journalists to work in.

Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Speech Gustavo Salas said 13 journalists had disappeared across the country since 2000.

"One of the common indicators in these cases is the destructive presence of drug-trafficking in certain areas of the country, which has had an impact on the rise in violence against journalists," he said.

Mr Salas said journalists working in the northern states on the US-Mexico border were worst hit by the violence.

The state of Sinaloa, where Mr Millan Salazar was killed, is the power base of the Sinaloa drug cartel, considered to be the most powerful criminal organisation in the country.

The killing of Mr Millan Salazar comes less than a month after crime reporter Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz was found dead.

Ms Ordaz, who worked for the Notiver newspaper, had her throat cut after being abducted in Veracruz state.

Veracruz officials said they suspected organised crime behind her killing, but denied that she had been killed because of her work.

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1 dead, 5 wounded in Mexico border school shooting ‎

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- Gunmen attacked a group of parents waiting for their children outside an elementary school Wednesday, killing one man and wounding five other people in a dangerous part of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.

The Chihuahua state prosecutor's office said two cars drove up to the school around noon, and two men got out and started shooting, apparently with assault rifles.

The gunfire wounded one man and four women, prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said.

Teachers locked down the school, not allowing students to leave until the situation calmed down. Frightened parents rushed to the school to search for their children.

No information on the motive for the attack was released, but schools in Ciudad Juarez have reported receiving threats and extortion demands in the past.

The federal Interior Ministry condemned the shootings. "This is precisely the irrational violence that should be combatted equally by all three levels of government," its statement said.

Mexico's federal government has been urging state and local authorities to improve their police forces with better training for their officers and by investigating officers for possible ties to crime organizations.

The Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels have been fighting for control of Ciudad Juarez, which neighbors El Paso, Texas. More than 6,000 people have been killed in the city since 2008.

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Mexican Journalist Kidnapped

The editor of Mexican online newspaper A Discusion was abducted Wednesday in Culiacan, capital of the western state of Sinaloa, authorities said.

Humberto Millan, who also anchored a news program on Radio Formula, was abducted at around 6:00 a.m. while driving to the studios to do the broadcast, a source of the state Attorney General’s Office said.

The journalist “was intercepted by a unit” carrying four or five armed men, the source said.

Millan’s publication has not commented on the abduction, which bore the hallmarks of organized crime.

More than 70 news professionals have been killed in Mexico since 2000, according to figures compiled by the independent National Human Rights Commission.

Sinaloa is the bastion of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, whose fugitive boss, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, appears on the Forbes magazine list of the world’s richest people.

Source: EFE

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Mexico’s Drug War Culture Jumps from Streets to Web

By Juan David Leal

The gory images of drug-related violence in Mexico are no longer limited to the streets, with scores of blogs and Web sites popping up to cover the carnage, and criminals often posting photos and videos documenting their deeds.

Several Web sites and blogs post news reports culled from traditional media outlets, photos of bodies and commentaries.

Other types of blogs, however, publish content provided by criminals, turning into sites for heated debates involving people who claim to belong to one or another drug cartel and threaten purported rivals.

At least three Web sites call themselves “Blog del Narco,” having URLs featuring different types of registrations, and others housed on blogging sites like Blogger or Wordpress, with one offering a “narco chat.”

These Web sites post videos of supposed interrogations of rival drug traffickers, torture sessions, shootouts, photographs featuring explicit images and even footage of the beheadings of suspected criminals.

Purported cartel members often make threats on the Web sites, vowing to hunt down and kill those who post comments critical of their criminal organizations.

“I come here because it’s an open forum, where I hear about what nobody wants to talk about,” a user calling himself “Manitas” said in a posting on one of the Web sites that also congratulated the site’s operator for not being a “sellout.”

Some people claim to be drug traffickers and sign with the name of a cartel.

“We are not against the people, we protect the people from those types of people who want to harm them, that’s why we need you to support us too,” a posting by CDG (the Spanish acronym for the Gulf cartel) said, referring to Los Zetas.

Los Zetas, the former armed wing of the Gulf cartel, is now locked in a war with its ex-employer in several parts of Mexico.

About 40,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006.

Some traditional media outlets used to publish daily tallies of killings and kept monthly and quarterly counts of violent crimes.

Media outlets, moreover, often published messages left by gangs with the bodies of rivals, and reporters used criminal slang in stories.

Around 50 media outlets, out of the more than 700 operating in Mexico, agreed in March to follow common guidelines in covering the war on drugs in an effort to avoid becoming “involuntary spokesmen” for criminals.

The media companies agreed to “act professionally,” stick to the facts, properly cast reports, not prejudge the guilty, protect victims and minors, protect journalists and urge citizens to play a role in fighting crime, among other measures.

The blogs, meanwhile, have mushroomed, with operators vowing to present information without an editorial filter and in its crude form.

Efe tried to contact the administrators of several Web sites without any success.

Some Web sites have posted mission statements.

“Reporting on what’s really going on in Mexico, a country that is tied up and which many think lacks a memory, while some of us do have one,” one Web site’s mission statement says.

The founders of the Web site, created on March 2, 2010, describe themselves as “two young men who are fighting to objectively let people know what is going on” and are specialists “in the fields of computers and journalism, respectively.”

“We make known the acts of violence that have made Mexican society live a reality that until recently was found in the shadows,” the Web site’s founders said, adding that their “principal source of information has been people who work with facts and materials.”

Source: EFE

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El Mayo Zambada's bad night

He felt the Army close, "right over my head" Said el Mayo , but was able to flee.

That dusky afternoon Ismael Zambada Garcia was more restless than usual. His instinct as a man of the mountains notified him that things didn't look so good in the southern hill of Culiacán.

The guards passed him reports that was repetitive in the last couple days, mobilized Army was traveling through the zone. The soldiers installed camps through the helicopters that carried them and supplies.

"Choppers are very active", his people reported to him. "stay focused and ready", he ordered them.

The noise of the military helicopters arrived occasionally to the refuge. El Mayo Zambada's senses intensified when the silence permitted it, some nearby sounds caused him to know that things didn't look well.

And as the ridge began to darkened they received a radio notice that soldiers were near the den. "Leave, they're on you".

Some how, the troops approach el Mayo. Mocking the multiple circles of security that spread around the boss. In highways, roads, paths, hills and thickets were men "sow" themselves, some armed, others disguising them self with the environment. Watching the vanguard and the rearguard of the leader of Sinaloa's cartel.

With little time to decide the elusion, they started hearing the motor of helicopters. They were on their trail in the dark of night, disembarking a commando of masked military men. The branches of trees and abundant bushes protected them. Mayo with three of his bodyguards walked in the half-light, a reflection of survival told him to walk toward the shadows where it was darker.

Feeling the boots of the soldiers stepping their heels. The shouts of "¡There they are, there they go!" and the deafening crash of the propellers breaking the wind. It opted for running while taking cover, grasping the land and seeking that nothing betrayed him, not even the creak of branches.

Immediately after half an hour of running for the hills, the calm arrived. The stealth continued for two or three hours more. Walking on rocks, shrubs and avoiding the branches of mesquites. Not saying one word that could betray them before the almost sure presence of soldiers in the area.

Without knowing where they're going or where they're at, they kept moving to a fast pace. Already without gas the only compass they carried was the foreboding that continued their control to move on and aware that some of the gunmen knew of the situation, were already seeking to find them.

Mayo ordered to turn off the radios and to put the cell phones on vibrate, but without answering the calls. They spoke in a low voice and codes, was the necessary thing for transmitting vital instructions for them.

Directing that he desired going to the height of a community whose name he mentioned. "There we got people that will help us escape". They didn't know the exact place of the location. Almost midnight, they saw the lights of a town. "Lets go there to seek someone that will guide us", they agreed.

While seeking out a man that knew the sierra like the palm of his hands. They found him not to old to bear the walk but not to young either, someone that knew the exact route to escape. "Get us out of here how ever you can and we're going to correspond very well", they told him.

They walked without stopping while the Army of personal security for el Mayo organized the search, inch by inch on the outsides of Culiacán bordering with Cosalá. His top gunmen had already ruled out that soldiers had captured their leader. Also Vicente Zambada Niebla, El Vicentillo, position an up to date with the circumstance in which his father was found. Placed himself in the front of operation to locate him.

Just as el Mayo came upon jumping streams, climbing up and down hills. El Vicentillo asked himself, did they go south of Culiacán? What had failed with the contacts in the Army, Police and the widespread of guards by routes and key points close to the den.

"What a way to begin the year", acknowledge the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, recalling the beginning of 2009.

It was already seven in the morning of the following day when they spotted the population where they wanted to arrive. Their spirit changed, they felt insurance and although the cellphones didn't have a signal by radio they began speaking to their gunmen and family. "We are well, they're coming for us". As for the guide they thanked him and offered to seek him out, to reward him for his service. "Who serves el Mayo gets rich", one of the bodyguard commented him.

And yes, el Mayo escaped from being captured by the Army's Elite Forces sent directly from the Office of the secretary for the National Defense. They would find out later, that the guide received a gift of fortunes.

To this, Ismael Zambada refers it in the encounter that he maintained with the journalist Julio Scherer, in which gives account the magazine Process in its edition 1744:

—¿Have you felt the Army close? —Four times, el chapo more.

—¿Really close? —Up, over my head. I fled for the hills, the one where I know the branches, the streams, the stones, everything. They get me if I stay still or become careless, As for el chapo, if we meet today, I come from far and as soon as we finish, I leave.


S ource: http://www.riodoce.com.mx/content/view/4818/2/

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