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Armed to the hilt, they came from land and air, determined to restore order to Mexico's most violent city. Nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers and armed federal police poured into the border town of Ciudad Juarez last weekend.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53293 Gates: U.S. Military Could Help Mexico Fight Drug Cartels By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 2, 2009 – The United States could increase its military support to help Mexico fight drug cartels that pose an increasingly alarming security risk, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday. “I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past,” Gates said during an NBC “Meet the Press” interview. “Some of the old biases against cooperation between our militaries and so on,...

MEXICO CITY — Federal police made two arrests and confiscated weapons and marijuana Sunday in Tijuana, across the U.S. border from San Diego, after coming under attack by men linked to a drug cartel. Police said one of the suspects told them they worked for “the engineer,” an apparent reference to a leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Officers, who were not injured in the attack, seized three assault rifles, pistols and bundles of marijuana. - snip - On Saturday, two police officers in the town of Praxedis Guerrero were shot dead in their patrol vehicle, prosecutors said. The...

El Debate (Sinaloa) 2/24/09 Three of four youths abducted Monday night were found murdered in farmland near Costa Rica, Sinaloa, some 20 miles south of Culiacan. The victims were ages 17, 19 and 20. The fourth youth abducted with them has not been located. All the bodies had signs of torture and had been shot repeatedly in their backs and heads. Their hands were tied behind them with cord. [Photo relates.] murder —– “A small fortune” in US currency was seized by Mexican federal authorities in Culiacan. The Army confiscated more than $380,000 as well as two vehicles from a...

This week, an Arizona gun shop goes on trial in state court in what law-enforcement officials are calling a landmark case against gun dealers who sell weapons that end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, fueling horrific violence south of the border that killed more than 6,000 people last year. X-Caliber Guns LLC, is accused of knowingly selling hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47s, to buyers who were posing as fronts for Mexican drug gangs. The gun store's owner, 47-year-old George Iknadosian, has maintained his innocence in court filings. While the U.S. has long pressed Mexico to stop...

Anderson Cooper did a piece for 60 Minutes tonight on the Mexican drug cartels, and generally he did a good job in presenting a concise overview of the issues. However, the segment failed to address the horrific violence perpetrated by the drug cartels on the U.S. side of the border in cities such as Phoenix, AZ and Atlanta, GA, and failed to address the role by U.S. financial institutions and money managers in laundering some $38 billion in drug money for the cartels every year. Cooper interviewed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who recognized that the drug cartels pose an...

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Hit men dressed in fake police tactical gear burst into a home in Phoenix, rake it with gunfire and execute a man.

The ebbing stretch of Rio Grande that divides the Texas city of El Paso from the Mexican city of Juarez may soon become one of the world's most militarized borders. This week, as Texas Governor Rick Perry went to El Paso to announce that has asked Washington for 1,000 more "boots on the ground" to enforce the border, Mexico's government ordered 5,000 extra soldiers to Juarez.

Jose Molinar knew something wasn't right. He hadn't heard from his wife for a few hours, which was not sitting well with him. Marisella Molinar worked as a secretary for a top prosecutor in Juarez... She was employed in the office for more than 10 years and though she lived across the border in El Paso, Texas, with her husband, she drove about 20 minutes over the Juarez-El Paso border every day. Her passenger, Jesus Huerta Yedra, was a target of the cartels that day.... One shot hit Marisella Molinar, a mother of two and proud grandmother, in the chest,...

President Felipe Calderon hopes to quell Mexico's rampant drug violence by the end of his term in 2012, and disputes U.S. fears that Mexico is losing control of its territory. In interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday, Calderon and his top prosecutor said the violence that killed 6,290 people last year — and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009 — is a sign that the cartels are under pressure from military and police operations nationwide, as well as turf wars among themselves. "To say that Mexico is a failed state is absolutely false," Calderon said....

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has rejected US concern that his country could become a failed state because of a growing wave of drug violence. Mr Calderon, in an interview with the Associated Press, said the cartels did not control any part of his country. He said that he intended to withdraw the army from the fight before he leaves office in 2012. Last month, the US military singled out Mexico and Pakistan as two countries most at risk of sudden collapse. More than 1,000 people are reported to have been killed in Mexico so far this year as gangs battle...

<p>MEXICO CITY, Mexico -- A mayor in Mexican President Felipe Calderon's home state was ambushed and killed by a group of heavily armed men as he returned to his house, news reports said.</p> <p>It was the second assassination attempt in eight days on Vista Hermosa Mayor Octavio Manuel Carrillo Castellanos, the Cambio de Michoacan newspaper said on its Web site Wednesday.</p>

The federal sentencing of three ex-Atlanta police officers for the illegal drug raid that left a 92-year-old woman dead closes only one chapter in the tragic case, the Atlanta Police Department said Wednesday. ... Carnes imposed the most severe sentence — 10 years — on Smith, 36, who obtained the illegal, no-knock search warrant allowing officers to batter down Johnston’s door. A terrified Johnston, thinking she was victimized by a home invasion, fired a warning shot through the door. Narcotics officers responded with a hail of gunfire, killing her. ...

Rising violence in Mexico is forcing foreign companies to change their operating procedures and shipping routes, and to tighten security for their employees, businessmen said Tuesday. U.S. security consultant John Baird said his family was robbed in late 2008 for the first time in the six years he has lived in Mexico. "2009 is going to be very difficult" because of rising violence and unemployment here, he added. He said there have been problems both with drugs stowed in freight shipments and with the army checkpoints posted to detect the drugs. One popular highway shipping route to the U.S. border...

Federal authorities arrested more than 750 people across the country in what they describe as "the largest and hardest hitting" operation to ever target the "the very violent and dangerously powerful" drug cartel known as Sinaloa. "International drug-trafficking organizations pose a sustained, serious threat to the safety and security as of our communities," Attorney General Eric Holder said in prepared remarks at a Washington press conference Wednesday afternoon... "As the world grows smaller and international criminals step up their efforts to operate inside our borders, [we] will confront them head-on to keep our communities safe." Through "Operation Xcellerator," authorities say...

EL PASO, Texas -- Texas Governor Rick Perry was in El Paso Tuesday with some stern words about the Mexican violence on our doorstep. For many people, the governor's words served as a reason to stay motivated in keeping the violence out of the United States. Perry said he is pushing for millions to further fund border protection efforts. "I called on the legislature to dedicate $135 million to our ongoing border security efforts." Perry said the money will primarily go toward "putting more boots on the ground," meaning getting more people on the border to keep the threat out....

Mexico’s attorney general said Tuesday he sees no need for U.S. troops to intervene in his country’s war on drug cartels, nor to gear up for a spillover of violence across the border. U.S. officials view the violence as a potential national security threat, and last month the Bush administration’s homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said Washington has drawn up contingency plans for a “surge” of both civilian law enforcement and military assets along the border. On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry demanded a tighter security net from Washington, saying he’s asked the Obama administration for more aircraft and “a thousand...

In Arizona's Pima and Cochise counties law enforcement officials "are seeing more and more 'rape trees,' places where Mexican drug cartel members rape female border crossers and hang their clothes."

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen shot at a convoy carrying the governor of a violence-wracked border state, killing one of his bodyguards and wounding two other agents. The federal Attorney General's Office said Monday it did not appear that Chihuahua Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza was the target of an assassination attempt. State investigators believe the shooting erupted over a traffic altercation between the bodyguards at the back of the convoy and armed men in two other cars, the office said in a statement. It did not provide further details.

MEXICO CITY, - The entire local police force in a Mexican beach resort town walked off the job on Monday demanding better pay and benefits to compensate for the rising dangers they face from drug violence. More than 300 municipal police officers in Zihuatanejo, a town on the Pacific coast north of Acapulco popular with foreign tourists, went on strike after grenades were lobbed at their offices over the weekend. (snip) "We are seeing a lot things here that we have never seen before. It is our job to serve the citizens, but we need assurances that our families will...