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ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI has denounced the drug-fueled violence wracking Mexico and is urging Cubans to use dialogue to find new models to replace Marxism, as he begins a pilgrimage to both countries. Benedict spoke to reporters after breakfast aboard a special Alitalia flight Friday bringing him to central Mexico later that day. The pope says "idolatry of money" lies behind the violence that has claimed more than 47,000 lives in Mexico since a government crackdown began in 2006. Benedict also says it's evident that in Cuba today Marxist ideology "no longer responds to reality"...

Southern Command’s chief, Air Force General Douglas Fraser, has recently briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the growing threat of Iranian-backed terror networks in South America. His insight contradicts the Director of National Intelligence’s, James Clapper’s, most recent national threat assessment which failed to mention anything about Iranian proxies. Is the growing Iranian/South American alliance threat truly new, or was this briefing intended to secure USSOUTHCOM’s budget? At the same time, the current administration seeks to cut defense spending, so virtually every major command needs sound reasons to justify sustaining, far less growing, its budget. Of the major commands,...

MEXICO CITY - The U.S. government has dispatched a career Navy SEAL and anti-terrorism expert to the U.S. embassy in Mexico City to serve as liaison with Mexican troops waging war on gangsters. Rear Adm. Colin Kilrain, a former senior commander of the U.S. Navy's special forces who last year worked on anti-terrorism for the National Security Council, recently took up the post of military attaché. He arrives amid a rising debate over the role and effectiveness of Mexico's military in President Felipe Calderon's anti-gangster campaign. "It is an interesting choice," U.S. political scientist Roderic Camp, who has specialized in...

SAN ANTONIO -- Private security bodyguards (PSBs) are a silent majority guarding Mexican nationals seeking asylum in San Antonio and other parts of South Texas. The nationals come to the US legally, hoping to escape drug cartel threats. But once they get here they realize they're still not safe from the ruthless cartels. "They're vigilant about getting their drugs into the United States," said Philip Klein, a private security officer and CEO of Klein Investigations and Consultation. "You either cooperate with them or you die." It's a harsh reality our neighbors to the south deal with on a daily basis....

by John HillStand With ArizonaFox Phoenix TV (KSAZ FOX 10) on Thursday showed a ridiculous propaganda piece purporting to show "the Arizona border" and how "safe" it is, as they follow Americans from around the nation on a "tour" of the border. Here's how they describe the piece: Make your own decision about life on the border. What is life on the border really like? Hop on the Border Bus Tour, and do your own fact finding about what it means to have a secure border. And in the video, the tour leader, Bob Feinman, tells us on the bus...

Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative and one-time leader of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center, claims that the Obama administration is running guns to the violent Zetas cartel through the direct commercial sale of military grade weapons: Jordan, who served as director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center in 1995, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons purchased in the Dallas area through El Paso. Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, told the Times he supported Jordan’s allegations, adding that the Zetas have reportedly bought property in the Columbus,...

Wonder how the Mexican drug cartels smuggle $50 billion in product over the United States border each year? Much of it is waved through by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The so-called border security agency is issuing passes to daily commuters from Mexico into the United States which exempts them from vehicle checks at the crossing as reported by Emily Smith for CNN. Although the passes only are issued to those who pass "a rigorous background check" -- for whatever that's worth -- the drug cartels can either scrounge up a clean applicant as a cooperative front or plant...

Authorities are investigating human remains found at the same U.S. border lake where a Colorado man was reported to have been killed by Mexican drug cartel members last year. A professional fisherman found the skeletal remains on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border, according to multiple reports. The skeleton was found about 15 miles from where 30-year-old David Hartley was last seen alive on Sept. 30, 2010. His wife, Tiffany Hartley, said the couple had set out on Wave Runners to take photos of a half-submerged church on the Mexican side of the lake when they...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming. The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk. The radio signal travels deep into the arid countryside, hours by foot from the nearest road. There, the 8-foot-tall (2-meter-tall) dark-green branches of the rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in the dirt draws power from a...

Arizona authorities have arrested some 200 people, and seized $7.8 million in cash and more than 1,200 pounds of drugs following an investigation they say has dismantled an "extensive" drug trafficking cell tied to the powerful Sinaloa cartel, federal and state authorities announced Tuesday. Authorities announcing the 15-month-long investigation said that although the Sinaloa cartel almost immediately regenerates after one of its cells have been taken down, their investigation certainly struck a blow. "Arresting a drug dealer is one thing but if we can actually follow that backwards and take out the head of the snake of this organization, we...

Mexico's ultra-violent Zetas drug cartel released a communique challenging Mexico and the United States. "Message to the nation, the government, and all of Mexico and to public opinion: The special forces of Los Zetas challenges the government of Mexico and its federal forces," said the communique, which was signed by Zetas leader Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, also known as Z-40. The Zetas were formed in 1999 Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, known as "El Lazca," who along with three other soldiers deserted an elite special operations unit within the Mexican army to become the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel. The...

Elaborate tunnel and discovery of more than 32 tons of marijuana are the latest in recent record busts as a new group boosts production after the decline of the Arellano Felix cartel. Reporting from San Diego— Smugglers stacked the bundles of dope on a freight elevator that descended to an underground staging area, where electric carts whisked the marijuana down a tunnel into California. The passageway linked a warehouse in Tijuana with another nondescript building in San Diego, and just like several other drug tunnels, its discovery this week yielded another jackpot seizure.

The mission was supposed to be a textbook "controlled delivery" - a routine trap by law enforcement officers using a secret operative posing as a truck driver to bust drug traffickers when their narcotics are delivered to a rendezvous point. Instead, things spun out of control. Shortly before the marijuana delivery was to be made Monday afternoon, three sport-utility vehicles carrying Zetas cartel gunmen seemingly came out of nowhere and cut off the tanker truck as it rumbled through northwest Harris County, sources told the Chronicle. They sprayed the cab with bullets, killing the civilian driver, who was secretly working...

Mexican soldiers hit the jackpot when they carried out a surprise search of a car in the unruly border town of Tijuana and found $15 million plus jewels and drugs stashed inside. The haul, uncovered on Friday, most likely belonged to one of the country's notorious drug cartels, the defense ministry said in a statement Tuesday. Showing the money off to the press, officials said it was believed that the cash was being transferred to a house used by members of the criminal gang headed by Joaquin Guzman," known by his alias as "El Chapo" and one of the most...

Authorities say Mexican drug cartels are becoming a growing presence in parts of northern New Mexico. The Farmington Daily Times reports ( http://bit.ly/sTqxR7 ) that Region II Narcotics Task Force Director Neil Haws says the Juarez cartel has been operating for two years in San Juan County, for example, but that the Sinaloa and Michoacan cartels also have gained ground

The US Drug Enforcement Agency has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to various countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean, the New York Times reported Monday. The countries where the commando teams have been deployed include Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Belize, all countries struggling to combat drug trafficking, the daily wrote. The program, known by its acronym FAST -- Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team -- dates back to the George W. Bush administration. It was created originally to investigate Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan. But US President Barack...

KMJ News has learned about an assassination plot targeting Governor Brown.

Since finding out about Operation Fast and Furious, Arizona Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has been anything but amused. With no regard for local law enforcement, the Obama Justice Department supplied the most dangerous criminals in North America with high powered weapons, including .50-calibur sniper rifles and AK-47s, leading to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and at least 200 innocent Mexican citizens. Now with the Southern border still wide open, Babeu and his deputies will face the barrels of those guns as they do their job to combat Mexican drug cartels illegally operating in Arizona. Today, Babeu's...

Los Angeles - Los Angeles police detectives arrested five suspects in connection with the burglary of a SWAT training facility in downtown Los Angeles, in which non-operable training weapons were stolen between October 12th and 13th. During the course of the investigation LAPD Detectives developed significant leads resulting in the service of search warrants at multiple locations on Thursday, October 27th and early morning hours of Friday, October 28th. The search warrants resulted in the recovery of three weapons stolen during the burglary and the arrest of five suspects in connection with the crime.

An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates' businesses. The vow is a bizarre cyber twist to Mexico's ongoing drug war, as a group that has no guns is squaring off against the Zetas, a cartel blamed for thousands of deaths as well as introducing beheadings and other frightening brutality. "You made a huge mistake by taking one of us. Release...

According to security officials in both Mexico and the United States, American law enforcement has built up a significant network of informants within the most powerful Mexican drug cartels. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Officials are now saying that the network of informants has grown substantially in Mexico and that these networks have enabled Mexican authorities to capture or kill approximately two dozen high and mid-level drug traffickers. They have also been helpful to American operations there. The new cooperation is historically uncharacteristic. Typically, Mexico is not told who the US informants are for the safety of the agents....

:28 Chaffetz: When did you first speak with Eric Holder about Fast and Furious? Napolitano: I don't believe I have ever spoken with Eric Holder about Fast and Furious. 3:01 Why is that you, as the Secretary of of Homeland Security with one of your agents dead on the scene, did not get briefed about fast and furious? Napolitano: I do not know.

In Acapulco, meanwhile, federal police said they caught a young woman and a young man as they were getting out of a car near a shopping mall with an ice chest that contained a decapitated head and other human remains. Police had followed them because the car matched the description in a kidnapping report. Inside the vehicle, police said, they found another head inside another ice chest. Police officers discovered the bound bodies of the victims in a car near Acapulco two hours after the arrest. Federal police said 19-year-old Damaris Gomez leads a group of killers working for “the...

70 minute VIDEO- Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox speaks on ending the drug war.

"Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalker" scandal (CBS News) There's a new twist in the government's "gunwalking" scandal involving an even more dangerous weapon: grenades. CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who has reported on this story from the beginning, said on "The Early Show" that the investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)'s so-called "Fast and Furious" operation branches out to a case involving grenades. Sources tell her a suspect was left to traffic and manufacture them for Mexican drug cartels. Police say Jean Baptiste Kingery, a U.S. citizen, was a veritable grenade machine. He's accused...

The White House said on Wednesday that senior members of Iran's Quds force participated in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and that the United States would hold Tehran accountable. "It's clear that senior levels of Quds force were engaged in the plotting," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, saying that Washington would respond by intensifying efforts to isolate Iran. The Quds Force (Persian: نیروی قدس, translit. Niru-ye Qods), (or Qods Force) is a special unit of Iran's Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Revolutionary Guard). It has been described as "tasked with...

IRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Terrified by Alabama's strict new immigration crackdown, parents living in the state illegally say they are doing something that was unthinkable just days ago — asking friends, relatives, co-workers and acquaintances to take their children if they're arrested or deported. ((snip)) "We're afraid to go back to Mexico because of the drugs, the cartels and the killings," Gonzalez said. "And we are afraid to stay here because of the law."

Twelve members of the Vagos motorcycle club were arrested and more than 300 weapons seized in raids across seven Southern California counties, in the latest attempt to dismantle what authorities say is a criminal enterprise. In all, 37 people have been arrested for a variety of drug-related crimes as part of a 18-month investigation led by the California Department of Justice.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has said that he is open to sending American troops to Mexico to help battle drug cartels. Mr Perry, the Texas governor, likened the situation to Colombia, where the government accepted American military support in battling drug trafficking. Mexico's government, however, has been opposed to foreign forces in its territory. 'It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and to keep them off of our border and to destroy their networks. 'I don’t know all the scenarios that are out there but I think it is...

Five severed HEADS found in sack outside Mexican primary school in latest sickening threat from drugs cartelsBy Laurie Whitwell Last updated at 12:17 PM on 29th September 2011 Mexican police have found five severed heads stuffed in a sack outside a primary school in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. The gruesome discovery comes after drugs gangs threatened to attack elementary school teachers if they did not pay half their wages to the drugs cartels. The extortion demands forced around 130 schools in the city to close earlier this month, after administrators and parents decided it was not safe enough...

"During the past two years, the state of Texas has become increasingly threatened by the spread of Mexican cartel organized crime," the report concluded. The report states six of the seven Mexican drug cartels have "command and control" operations in Texas cities. "Texas has become critical terrain and operational ground zero in the cartel's efforts to expand into the United States," the report stated. McCaffrey said the cartels are heavily recruiting Texas gang members to help insure the transportation of drugs into the United States and cash from the sale of drugs back into Mexico. McCaffrey said the Texas Department...

Despite empty assurances from Washington, communities along the Texas-Mexico border continue to face threats and violence from Mexican drug cartels. With the release of our commissioned report, "Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment," the Texas Department of Agriculture offers a powerful perspective into this national security breach. If President Barack Obama and his administration won't hear the concerned voices of Texans, perhaps he will listen to high-ranking retired military generals who know a thing or two about facing foreign enemies. Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug czar under President Bill Clinton and SouthCom commander of all...

Authorities have confirmed the murder of a Nuevo Laredo newspaper editor whose body decapitated and left with a message not to use social media to report about drug cartels. It all happened in the Colonia Madero of Nuevo Laredo around 7:45 a.m. Saturday. According to reports, a woman's body was next to a statue of Christopher Columbus with a message not to use social media to report about drug cartel violence. The Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office (PGJE) identified the woman's body as 39-year-old Maria Elizabeth Macias-Castro, the editor of Nuevo Laredo's Primera Hora newspaper. Macias-Castro is the third person in...

Out of sight is out of mind. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano can give the impression she’s doing her job and keeping Americans safe when Americans are unaware of the dangers lurking next door. Napolitano can’t stop natural oppressors like tropical storms, hurricanes or earthquakes but she can impede the drug cartel violence on the U.S.-Mexico border. Nevertheless, Napolitano refuses to publicly acknowledge the extent of border violence from drug cartels. She also refrains from pressuring the media to cover the preventable destruction and bloodshed on the border as much as it covers natural disasters. Between 35,000 and 40,000...

PHOENIX – Authorities confirm two weapons tied to the ATF's failed anti-gunrunning program 'Operation Fast and Furious' were found at a violent crime scene in Maricopa, Ariz., in 2010 -- marking the latest case in which such guns have been linked to violent crimes across the U.S. and Mexico. The two guns found at the scene were an AK-47 and a Beretta pistol, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The weapons were found inside a stolen truck in March 2010 after the driver slammed into two DPS vehicles while trying to evade members of the Arizona Vehicle Theft...

Mexico City – Violent crime has become a problem of national security in Mexico, where half of the territory is outside of state control and "we're in the hands of the narcos," an intelligence expert and author of a new book on Mexico's public safety woes, said. Jorge Carrillo Olea, founder of Mexico's leading intelligence center, said the "state has lost territorial control, and therefore governability," over roughly 50 percent of the country.The government has been incapable of fully enforcing the law and ensuring justice is upheld, said Carrillo, who spoke to Efe while in Mexico City to promote his...

The flight is one of as many as 10 in the past 17 months in which South Texans - in broad daylight - have spotted Mexican helicopters hovering overhead. The aircraft was so close to the ground military personnel could be seen inside, Gonzalez said. While an array of U.S. federal and state agencies declined to comment, a Mexican government official confirmed that Mexican military helicopters have permission to use Texas as a staging ground for missions into Mexico to fight drug traffickers. "Yes, I can tell you they exist, they are going on," said the official, who has knowledge...

Think before you tweet. A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a Twitter social network account. Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools. [. . .] The charges say the messages caused such panic that...

FORT BRAGG, Calif. (AP) -- A Northern California town was reeling Monday after the death of a well-respected city councilman and former mayor who was gunned down after finding a remote illegal marijuana operation. As authorities searched the rugged forest terrain for a suspect in the shooting, Fort Bragg Councilman Jere Melo was remembered as a community leader who led efforts to build firehouses and a first-class high school football stadium in the coastal town of about 7,000 people.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Two decapitated bodies and scalped heads were dumped outside a Sam's Club store in Acapulco while three headless corpses were found nearby on the resort city's main tourist strip, authorities in Mexico said Saturday. The bodies discovered outside the Sam's Club were cut into more than 20 pieces, Guerrero state's Public Security Department said in a statement.

Authorities in Nogales, Ariz., this week shut down a 90-foot-long smuggling tunnel spanning the U.S.-Mexican border and arrested two men and a boy. "Anytime you see electricity, ventilation and shoring, it's pretty sophisticated," said Vincent Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Agents were conducting surveillance along the border Tuesday when they spotted a truck with Arizona license plates and noticed suspicious activity around it, according to an ICE press release. Agents followed the truck as it left, pulled it over and discovered 2,621 pounds of marijuana inside. ... The tunnel is about three feet wide and three...

Reporting from Washington— In March 2010, the No. 2 man at the ATF was deeply worried. His agents had lost track of hundreds of firearms. Some of the guns, supposed to have been tracked to Mexican drug cartels, were lost right after they cleared the gun stores. Five months into the surveillance effort — dubbed Operation Fast and Furious — no indictments had been announced and no charges were immediately expected. Worse, the weapons had turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the ATF official was worried that someone in the United States could be hurt next. Acting Deputy...

UKIAH -- An estimated $800 million worth of marijuana has been seized following a massive raid on illegal grows on public lands deep in Northern California's pot country, authorities said Tuesday. ... Several Mexican-based drug trafficking organizations were behind the illegal grows, Department of Justice spokeswoman Michelle Gregory said. In previous years, officials have blamed Mexican drug cartels for some of the state's largest growing operations, but Gregory stopped short of making that claim.

An organized crime group calling itself the Knights Templar is distributing booklets saying it is fighting a war against poverty, tyranny and injustice, publicly appealing to hearts and minds in a part of Mexico where the government claims it has largely taken down the major drug traffickers. Federal police said they seized copies of the cartel's "code of conduct" booklet during an arrest of cartel members in the western state of Michoacan last week, but refused to release its contents Tuesday, saying they didn't want fan the flames of the quasi-religious movement. But a copy of the 22-page "The Code...

Washington - Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar told CNSNews.com that Mexican drug cartels control “several areas along our border with Mexico.” In Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Aguilar, “Do you think Mexican drug cartels have taken control of the human trafficking that takes place from Mexico to the U.S.?” Aguilar said, “There are several areas along our border with Mexico where in fact we believe that the drug cartels not only have taken control, but control the areas by which the illegal crossings occur.”

MORELIA, Mexico — An organized crime group calling itself the Knights Templar is distributing booklets saying it is fighting a war against poverty, tyranny and injustice, publicly appealing to hearts and minds in a part of Mexico where the government claims it has largely taken down the major drug traffickers. Federal police said they seized copies of the cartel's "code of conduct" booklet during an arrest of cartel members in the western state of Michoacan last week, but refused to release its contents Tuesday, saying they didn't want fan the flames of the quasi-religious movement. But a copy of the...

"Operation Second Sole is a year long investigation targeting what authorities call "high value" suspects involved in the drug and weapons trafficking, robberies and numerous ``acts of violence.'' Federal, state and local law enforcement officers and agents served several arrest and search warrants throughout San Diego County to capture the individuals and believe they disrupted their criminal enterprises. More than one dozen suspects were arrested Tuesday. Many have significant criminal histories and were considered to be armed and dangerous. Authorities say the success of the operation enabled the County get rid of a serious threat to the safety and security...

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following story contains graphic, disturbing content and language that may not be suitable for some readers. For some victims of the drug war in Mexico, the road to hell starts with a train ride. First, coyotes approach, offering transportation to the border. No money changes hands – yet. The travelers are herded like cattle into boxcars. There is little or no food; the heat is excruciating. The monotonous thunder of the train on the rails lulls them. Then, the train rolls to a stop. The horror is about to begin. THE REPORT The Comisión Nacional de los...

Law: After getting caught doing the unbelievable — arming Mexico's cartels — word is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms boss is out, and the gun-controller the White House wanted all along is in. How far up does this go? Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson is apparently ready to take the fall for what may be the most morally repulsive scandal to befall the Obama administration so far. Our neighbor Mexico lies bleeding from a long, vicious war to fight seven major drug cartels at once. Some 38,000 have been left dead since 2006. Amid all this, U.S. ATF...