Free Republic

By Lizbeth Diaz TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Seventeen Mexican drug gang members were killed near the U.S. border on Saturday, their bodies scattered along a road after one of the deadliest shootouts in Mexico's three-year narco-war. Rival factions of the Arellano Felix drug cartel in Tijuana on the Mexico-California border battled each other with rifles and machine guns in the early hours of the morning, police said. Fourteen bodies were lying in pools of blood on a road near assembly-for-export maquiladora plants on the city's eastern limits. The corpses were surrounded by hundreds of bullet casings and many of their...

A Mexican national who was shot by two Border Patrol agents but later was charged with smuggling marijuana is expected to plead guilty to those charges today in federal court in El Paso, Texas, The Washington Times has learned. Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, whose testimony against Border Patrol Agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean led to their conviction in March 2006, was apprehended by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) last year at the international port of entry in El Paso, after witnesses identified him in a second drug-smuggling operation. Ramos and Compean are serving 11 and 12 years, respectively....

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

EL PASO, Texas - Mexican Consulate officials in El Paso, Texas, said Mexican drug cartels have been posting help-wanted ads in Juarez, Mexico, newspapers. The officials said publications including P.M., El Diario de Juarez and El Norte have been printing vague help-wanted ads that are designed to trick young people into smuggling drugs over the border into the United States, the Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News reported Friday. Mexican Consulate spokeswoman Socorro Cordova said the issue came to the attention of officials nine months ago when the family of a driver stopped at the U.S. border showed the ad to Mexican...

Alleged gun smuggling leader arrested in TucsonBy: The Associated Press Updated at: 04/04/2008 02:16:41 PM PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona authorities have arrested a Tucson man accused of being the leader of a gun smuggling network that supplied a Mexican drug cartel with weapons. Authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of 23-year-old Victor Manuel Varela Jr., who is accused of supplying the Juarez cartel in Palomas, Mexico with rifles and guns. Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says Varela’s network illegally bought the firearms in Arizona, transported them to New Mexico and then took...

Murders and kidnappings on both sides of the border have significantly increased in recent years. The violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has increased so dramatically that the Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz asked Mexican President Felipe Calderón to send more help as reported in the El Paso Journal. Only thirty federal officers had been sent at that time to Juárez despite repeated requests for more help. It's necessary and urgent to have agents from the federal preventive police to patrol the streets the way that we need to confront this situation," Reyes Ferriz said in a news conference. The Mexican...

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – The government of Mexican President Felipe Calderón on Thursday announced a military surge of more than 2,000 soldiers in this besieged border community – caught in the crossfire between two warring drug cartels. "Operation Chihuahua," named after Mexico's biggest state, nestled against New Mexico and Texas, is aimed at restoring law and order in a region that many say has grown lawless. Since Jan. 1, nearly 200 people have been killed in this city of 1.2 million. "In this fight, Chihuahua is not alone," said Mexico's interior secretary Juan Camilo Muriño, who was accompanied by the...

MEXICO CITY - Suspected drug cartel gunmen killed five people in an attack on a police station in central Mexico and during their subsequent escape, authorities said on Saturday. At least six masked, heavily armed men raided the police station in the town of Jerecuaro, in the state of Guanajuato, on Friday, shooting and killing two police officers and a secretary. Making their escape in sport utility vehicles, they gunned down another two police officers on a nearby highway, state authorities said. Police later found one of the gunmen dead of a gunshot wound in one of three abandoned bullet-riddled...

Soldiers seized assault rifles, grenades, marijuana and bulletproof vests bearing police insignia after a brief shootout in the Mexican border city of Tijuana. No one was wounded in the overnight exchange of fire with three suspects hunkered down in a house in La Mesa district, army Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito told reporters Friday. Troops seized 91 assault rifles — some with butts of gold and ivory — along with 18 grenades, the bulletproof vests and more than 880 pounds of marijuana, Aponte Polito said. The three suspects, aged 25 to 33, were arrested. The bust followed weeks of bloody confrontations...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers seized nearly 10 tons of marijuana, a machine gun, scores of assault rifles and three grenades in a raid Thursday just across the border from Texas, the military said. Soldiers stopped a fleeing minivan and searched a nearby building outside the city of Miguel Aleman, across from Roma, Texas. Inside, they found the marijuana, 89 assault rifles, more than 80,000 rounds of ammunition and a host of other weapons, a Mexican Defense Department statement said. Five men, from ages 28 to 62, were arrested, according to the statement. The seizure follows weeks of bloody confrontation...

A proposal facing action by the U.S. Senate would force National Park and National Wildlife Refuge managers to allow more loaded, hidden handguns in national parks and wildlife refuges, endangering the public as well as wildlife. "This is more of the same from the gun pushers - any gun, anywhere, at any time," said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Why are we putting hikers, campers and families at risk by introducing loaded, hidden handguns into our national parks and refuges? This proposal is a bad idea that the Senate should reject." Senator Tom Coburn...

TIJUANA, Mexico – A key hitman for Mexico's Arellano Felix drug cartel was arrested on Saturday in this crime-ridden border city, in another coup for President Felipe Calderón's clampdown on traffickers. After an anonymous tip-off, soldiers stormed a house and arrested Alfredo Araujo Avila, also known as Popeye, Tijuana's military chief Gen. German Redondo told reporters. “He is considered one of the most dangerous hitmen of the Arellano Felix cartel,” Gen. Redondo said. Araujo Avila had dodged arrest for a decade in Tijuana, which is just over the U.S. border from San Diego. He is wanted in the United States...

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.11.2007 A man found dead on the South Side Sunday morning was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after he and three other armed intruders burst into the agent's house, an official said Monday. Christian Gomez, 20, and Mark A. Escobar Jr., 19, along with two other intruders burst into the home of an off-duty Border Patrol agent and his family about 4:50 a.m. Sunday, according to police.

MEXICO CITY - A Mexican singer was shot to death in her hospital bed, police said Monday, the fourth time in a year assailants have killed performers of a popular northern music whose lyrics often focus on drug trafficking and violence. Zayda Pena, 28, was shot in the heart Saturday in the city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, while recovering from a gunshot wound to the neck received on Friday, police detective Abel Infante said. No suspects had been identified. Two people with Pena were killed in the Friday shooting. Pena headed a band known as Zayda...

<p>MEXICO CITY: A deadly attack on federal intelligence agents in northern Mexico was a botched kidnapping attempt orchestrated by drug traffickers with increasingly advanced counterintelligence capabilities, a state government official said Monday.</p> <p>Natividad Gonzalez, governor of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, said federal intelligence officers were tipped off that alleged members of Mexico's Gulf drug cartel "wanted to kidnap two or three agents" prior to the attack last Tuesday in the state capital of Monterrey. Two officers were killed and two more wounded in the ensuing shootout.</p>

Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) is calling on Congress to investigate the ties between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug gangs revelaed in a report by the Drug Enforcement Agency in yesterday's Washington Times. A ranking House Republican yesterday demanded a hearing based on recent reports that Islamic terrorists embedded in the United States are teaming with Mexican drug cartels to fund terrorism networks overseas. Rep. Ed Royce, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee, said the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) document — first reported yesterday by The Washington Times — highlights how vulnerable the nation is when...

A former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration warned federal officials shortly after the September 11 attacks that violent drug cartels from Mexico were teaming with Muslim gangs to fund terrorist organizations overseas. Asa Hutchinson, who also has been a Homeland Security undersecretary, said that in 2001, DEA agents uncovered the link between the drug cartels and terrorist groups but too few government officials listened. "I think it's important to recognize that the link between terrorism and drug trafficking exists," said Mr. Hutchinson in a phone interview from Arkansas. "While we are fighting terrorists, we should not neglect our fight...

Islamic extremists embedded in the United States — posing as Hispanic nationals — are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report. "Since drug traffickers and terrorists operate in a clandestine environment, both groups utilize similar methodologies to function ... all lend themselves to facilitation and are among the essential elements that may contribute to the successful conclusion of a catastrophic event by terrorists," said the confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. The 2005 report outlines an ongoing scheme in which...

Police burn thousands of pot plants in forest preserve By Dan Ponce July 24, 2007 - Cook County Forest Preserve Police and federal agents were busy Tuesday cutting down and burning thousands of marijuana plants. The plants were found in a northwest suburban forest preserve. Investigators say they uncovered a very sophisticated pot-growing operation. Related Links Get ABC7 Newsletters Get Desktop Alerts It is a forest of marijuana plants. "These are not wild or indigenous, these were planted to be sold," said Gary Olenkiewicz, special agent DEA. The plants were spread out over 11 fields. There are between 20,000 and...

CHICAGO -- Cook County Forest Preserve police and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration cut down and burn all of the plants found in 11 illegally cultivated cannabis fields in Cook County forest preserves -- pot with an estimated street value of $4 million dollars. Officials announced charges against two 23-year-old Mexican immigrants in what DEA officials called an elaborate, sophisticated cultivation scheme, according to a release from forest preserve police. Bernardo Rangel and Jose Verra were arrested in connection with the scheme. Raw Video: Marijuana Burned Rangel and Verra were each charged July 11 with cultivating marijuana over 50...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican police rearrested a former governor Thursday as he was released from prison with the intent of extraditing him to the United States to face cocaine-trafficking charges. Mario Villanueva, 58, who governed the Yucatan Peninsula state that includes the resorts of Cancun and the Riviera Maya from 1993 until 1999, was arrested at dawn, moments after finishing a six-year sentence here for money laundering. He faces federal charges in New York of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle as much as 200 tons of cocaine into the United States while governor of Quintana Roo state. Much...

SANTA CATARINA, Mexico — Sex never has been safer since a motel called the Thunderclap Ranch reinforced its cinder-block rooms and started advertising them as bulletproof. For $5 an hour, guests here in the gritty outskirts of violence-plagued Monterrey needn't worry about jealous spouses — or more to the point, drug cartel hit men, who usually are better armed. Employee Lucy Regalado, 50, stands inside a room at the 'armored' Thunderclap Ranch hotel in the violent Monterrey area. Business is booming at the $5-per-hour establishment, which also will supply six-packs of beer for $4 and snacks through a porthole in...

GUARATINGUETA: Pope Benedict warned Latin America's ruthless drugs cartels they would face God's harsh judgement for wrecking countless lives across the region. After hearing moving stories of hardship and recovery from former cocaine and heroin addicts on the fourth day of his visit to Brazil, the Pope said drug abuse was a scourge throughout Latin America. "I therefore urge the drug dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society," he said in a speech to recovering addicts at the Farm of Hope (Fazenda da Esperanca)...

MEXICO CITY — Five soldiers and a suspected drug cartel enforcer were killed in a shootout in the western state of Michoacan, which has been plagued by drug violence and is the target of a military-led anti-drug offensive. More than a dozen suspected Zetas — a group of Gulf cartel hitmen that includes former soldiers — opened fire on the troops late Tuesday in Caracuaro, 120 miles west of Mexico City, police spokesman Miguel Covarrubias said Wednesday. The Defense Ministry said five soldiers were killed but declined to give details or confirm media reports that at least four more were...

(Editors note: This is the first of two stories on Gabriel Cardona that first appeared in the Houston Chronicle. The second is scheduled to appear Monday in the Laredo Morning Times.)If the teenage hitman had stayed locked up in his concrete cell after the first murder, maybe Moises Garcia would still sing goofy Spanish songs to his son. Maybe Noe Lopez, a 27-year-old father of four, wouldn’t be buried under a sapling in the city cemetery. Maybe. If a judge hadn’t reduced Gabriel Cardona’s bail after the second murder charge, perhaps Mariano Resendez would be close to finishing his junior...

LAREDO — If the teenage hitman had stayed locked up in his concrete cell after the first murder, maybe Moises Garcia would still sing goofy Spanish songs to his son. Maybe Noe Lopez, a 27-year-old father of four, wouldn't be buried under a sapling in the city cemetery. Maybe. If a judge hadn't reduced Gabriel Cardona's bail after the second murder charge, perhaps Mariano Resendez would be close to finishing his junior year of high school. If the justice of the peace hadn't decreased Cardona's bail on another murder charge and a charge of engaging in organized crime from a...

SAN DIEGO – Federal authorities Wednesday arrested dozens of individuals across the country suspected of bringing 18 tons of illegal drugs into the United States, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said in an afternoon news conference here. Members of the Victor Emilio Cazares-Gastellum drug trafficking ring were awakened in the early morning hours by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies who served simultaneous arrest warrants as part of a 20-month-long investigation into the ring's operations, Gonzales and other federal officials said. Gonzales said the Mexico-based organization acquired drugs from Colombia and Venezuela to Central America, then smuggled them into...

MEXICO CITY - Authorities on Wednesday announced the capture of a purported drug cartel leader, the first major drug arrest under the administration of President Felipe Calderon, who has pledged a nationwide war against the drug trade. Pedro Diaz Parada was arrested in the country's southern state of Oaxaca on Tuesday and taken to Mexico City. He faces charges of organized crime and drug trafficking, the attorney general's office said in a news release. Prosecutors say Diaz Parada founded the cartel named after him in Mexico's southeastern region. Federal police and soldiers stopped the sport utility vehicle in which Diaz...

MEXICO CITY — Six police officers were shot to death in an apparent ambush in a rural part of western Mexico that has been plagued by drug violence, prosecutors said Tuesday. The bullet-riddled bodies of an investigative officer, a group commander and four officers were found after a caller reported gunshots late Monday near Aguililla, a mountain town about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of the Michoacan state's capital of Morelia.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The unceasing wave of violence in this city claimed the lives of two state police officers Tuesday, including the head of the homicide division. Juan Gonzalez and Rodolfo Eguia had just finished lunch at a local restaurant about 12:15 p.m. and were leaving in a green Jeep Cherokee when gunmen ambushed them, authorities said. The Jeep then crashed into the corner of a building next to the restaurant, knocking out a large chunk of bricks and concrete that landed on the hood. No arrests were made, and investigators didn't have a description of the assailants' vehicle....

A high school social studies teacher who was put on leave after comparing President Bush's State of the Union address to speeches made by Adolf Hitler defended his lecture on Tuesday, saying he was trying to encourage students to think. "My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society," Jay Bennish said on NBC's "Today Show." Bennish is on paid leave from Overland High School in suburban Aurora, Colo., while Cherry Creek School District investigates whether his Feb. 1 lecture violated a policy requiring that balancing viewpoints...

The Associated Press reached a new level of incompetence, and the "news" industry they serve doesn’t seem to care. If you want political opinion, you’ll find it in Associated Press dispatches. If you want news, you might have to read conservative opinion columns. On February 22nd, Walter Williams, a Townhall.com columnist, scooped the mainstream media. Williams reported that high school teacher Jay Bennish lectured his geography class stating: 1) "[President Bush’s State of the Union Speech] sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say." 2) "Bush is threatening the whole planet." 3) "[The] U.S. wants to keep...

COLORADO high-school sophomore Sean Allen couldn't convince his father that his geography teacher was as over-the-top as he contended. So Allen taped one of his teacher's rants on his MP3 player. Too bad for Jay Bennish: His 20 minute lecture ended up on talk radio. As aired on Mike Rosen's show, Bennish said President Bush talks like Hitler: "I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same," but that the two share "eerie similarities." Peruvians and Iranians arguably have "a right to bomb North Carolina" because the state grows tobacco. On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda operatives were...

by Mark Finkelstein March 7, 2006 Turns out the real culprit in the Colorado kerfluffle over the teacher who compared Pres. Bush to Hitler is . . . the student who complained about it. Just ask Matt Lauer. Interviewing teacher Jay Bennish this morning, Lauer laid out this sympathetic scenario: Lauer: "The family here, the student's family, didn't go to the school board with this tape." Bennish: "They never contacted me." Lauer: "They shopped it around to conservative media outlets and finally released it to one and created an uproar. On the tape you can hear Sean Allen [the student...

Student 'starting to get crucified,' his dad says By Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News March 4, 2006 Sean Allen's dad says he isn't handling this week's media attention and threats as well as his son. "Sean has handled this way better than his father," Jeff Allen, Sean's dad, said in an interview with Sean Hannity, syndicated talk show host with Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes. "To read some of these e-mails that are attacking Sean is just devastating," he said. "It looks like the tactic is to turn it around, to make it about Sean and not about the...

March 2, 2006 — A Colorado school is in upheaval following the suspension of a teacher who was recorded comparing President Bush's rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler. More than 100 students at Overland High School in Aurora, Colo., walked out of class this morning to protest the decision to put geography teacher Jay Bennish on administrative leave. The school administration made the move after a student went public with a 20-minute recording of Bennish's comments to his class. In the tape, the teacher is heard saying there were similarities between remarks Bush made in his State of the Union...

Let's start off with a few quotations, then a question. In reference to the president's State of the Union: "Sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say." "Bush is threatening the whole planet." "[The] U.S. wants to keep the world divided." Then the speaker asks, "Who is probably the most violent nation on the planet?" and shouts "The United States!" What's the source of these statements? Were they made in the heat of a political campaign? Was it a yet-to-be captured leader of al Qaeda? Was it French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin? Any "yes" answer would...

SAN DIEGO – Federal authorities said Friday they have set up a toll-free tip line so anyone can come forward with any information about the Mexico/U.S. cross-border tunnel that was discovered last month under an Otay Mesa warehouse. Callers to the 24-hour, bilingual phone line – (877) 9-TUNNEL – may remain anonymous. Investigators are looking for information on the construction or use of the passageway or any other tunnel between the U.S. and Mexico, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack. She said agents are concerned that anyone involved with the tunnel may be “in grave danger” and...

Surinamese Deepak Kalpoe, 21, arrives to court in Oranjestad, Aruba, Friday, Aug. 26, 2005. Aruban police arrested Kalpoe and his brother Satish, 18, along with a third person according to government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg, saying he doesn't know if the arrests are connected to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The two brothers had been previously detained and released. (AP Photo/Pedro Famous Diaz) Surinamese Satish Kalpoe, 18, front, gets in a car to go to court in Oranjestad, Aruba, Friday, Aug. 26, 2005. Two Surinamese brothers, Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, who had been detained and released in the disappearance of Natalee...

Profile of Natalee Holloway Missing: Natalee Holloway participated in a trip with 125 seniors from Mountain Brook High School to Aruba in the Caribbean. In the early morning hours on May 30, 2005 Natalee was seen leaving a nightclub and getting into a vehicle. She failed to turn up Monday morning for her return flight home and she has not been seen since. Foul play is suspected in her disappearance. Profile: Natalee Holloway was born on October 21, 1986 to Beth and Dave Holloway. She grew up in the close-knit community of Mountain Brook, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. She...

NEW - Read a letter to the Governor of Alabama from Natalee Holloway's father Aruba Message Board

BEJUMA, Venezuela - In this deceptively tranquil farming village, people still talk about the ''Bejuma massacre'' in a whisper, partly because one man who spoke out is in a grave, partly because the killers were allegedly policemen. But the source of the fear can be summed up in a single word: drug trafficking, on the kind of massive level and involving corrupt government officials that has long been a profound problem in neighboring Colombia. Drug seizures in Venezuela doubled in the past four years. There are mounting allegations of drug-fueled corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied...

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The bloodshed continued in this border city Saturday when gunfire erupted between federal and city police, leaving one federal agent dead, officials said. Above: Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, police officers dressed in blue are detained by the Mexican military. Forty-one of the officers were detained after a shootout with federal agents. Below: Family members of detained municipal police officers protested at the Palacio Federal to have them released. The protest intensified when the officers were trucked out by the Mexican military. There were conflicting reports as to what sparked the shootout between the two law enforcement groups....

U.S. officials say Zetas have killed in Texas Investigators say the feared band of ex-military elite forces are operating in Texas and other parts of the United States. Wire servicesFebruary 20, 2005 A team of rogue Mexican commandos blamed for dozens of killings along the U.S.-Mexico border has carried out at least three drug-related slayings in Dallas, a sign that the group is extending its deadly operations into U.S. cities, two U.S. law enforcement officials say. The men are known as the Zetas, former members of the Mexican army who defected to Mexico's so-called Gulf drug cartel in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Back when federal lawmakers legally could be paid for speaking to outside groups, John Kerry collected more than $120,000 in fees from interests as diverse as big oil, tobacco, the liquor lobby and unions, records show. Between 1985 and 1990, Kerry's first five years in the Senate from Massachusetts, he pocketed annual amounts slightly under the limits for speaking fees set by Congress. Unlike many colleagues, he donated a speaking fee to charity only once, according to annual financial disclosure reports reviewed by The Associated Press. One of the companies to pay Kerry $1,000 for a speech...