Free Republic

On Thursday, the Dallas News reported: Three grenades exploded Thursday evening in Nuevo Laredo, just feet from the U.S. Consulate office, sources in the Mexican border city said. No injuries were reported, but the explosions rattled the neighborhood, as locals scurried for cover amid a firefight between what’s believed to be members of the Zetas criminal group and their former allies, the Gulf cartel, which is making a push to reclaim the territory. The two groups appear to be battling, leaving a trail of killings and burned houses. In recent days, sources said, seven people have been killed — three...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

Authorities have confirmed that one gunman has been wounded and that five kidnapping victims have been rescued following a Wednesday afternoon shootout in a busy downtown Reynosa shopping district. Mexico's Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) confirmed that a shootout took place in the "peatonal" or "pedestrian shopping area" of downtown Reynosa on Wednesday afternoon. SEDENA officials reported that soldiers were in the area when they came under fire from an unknown number of men. Reynosa residents reported the gunfire on the social media network Twitter. SEDENA officials reported that shootout ended with one gunman being wounded and five alleged kidnapping...

City of Eagle Pass International Bridge No. 2 closed due to bomb threat By: Jose G. Landa© The City of Eagle Pass International Bridge No. 2 located on 400 Garrison Street has been closed down today, Wednesday, September 26, 2012, at approximately 10:30 a.m. due to a bomb threat on the bridge. Federal and City of Eagle Pass officials decided to close down the International Bridge No. 2 after locating a suspicious package at the bridge. Maverick County Sheriff Tomas S. Herrera stated that his deputy monitoring the bomb threat on behalf of his department reported that there appears to...

MEXICO CITY — The El Manana newspaper in the northern Mexico border city of Nuevo Laredo says it will stop covering violent criminal disputes after suffering a second grenade attack against its offices in two months. Other northern Mexican newspapers have quietly adopted similar policies of not covering drug cartel violence to protect their staffs against threats and violent attacks including kidnappings and murders carried out by gangs that either don't want their activities to appear in print, or are angered by coverage of their rivals. But El Manana's announcement Tuesday was unusual because it was public. The paper did...

Video is beginning to surface online of the moments after that car bomb that went off in Nuevo Laredo Friday morning a little after 11AM. The video was taken by an eyewitness only moments after, what officials say, was a grenade that went off in a pick-up truck at around 11:15 Friday morning outside the main municipal building in Nuevo Laredo. Seven victims were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. The outside of the building was damaged, along with nearby vehicles. Residents on both sides of the border were alarmed after hearing an explosion Friday morning. Smoke could be seen for...

The day started as quietly as it could on a Saturday at the U.S.-Mexico border. For Maria Ortega, a quiet weekend meant a quick trip to the Walmart along Cavazos Lerma Boulevard for ingredients for her barbacoa de lenguadish that she cooks on the eve of the Sunday morning meal. On the morning of June 2, Ortega couldn’t make the trip to Walmart. The area had been cordoned off by the Mexican military, which was removing a grenade that had been thrown — but not detonated — at the nearby Televisa studios. According to a Tamaulipas law enforcement official who...

Authorities in Eagle Pass shut down the two international bridges there Tuesday night after shootouts in its sister city of Piedras Negras. One female police officer was killed and six people were wounded during the fighting, and prosecutors in the border state of Coahuila said a wounded officer is in serious condition. Traffic to Mexico was shut down on both bridges about 9 p.m., according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Traffic from Mexico at the city's larger bridge, the Camino Real International, was rerouted overnight to the Eagle Pass International Bridge. Both resumed normal operation Wednesday at 7:40 a.m.,...

LAREDO — A former hit man for the Zetas cartel calmly related to jurors his role in killings on both sides of the border, testifying Monday in the drug conspiracy trial of a man prosecutors say was also a hired killer. From the witness stand in U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez's courtroom here, Rosalio Reta pointed to Gerardo Castillo Chavez, 25, and identified him as a fellow Zeta. Pressing his fingertips together and speaking in a slow, soft voice, Reta, 22, told jurors that he had been in a team of hit men headed by Gabriel Cardona, an admitted Zeta...

NEAR ALTON — Two men stepped down from a white truck at a house near Alton. A pair of Jeeps pulled up close behind. It was Memorial Day weekend 2011. The truck’s driver said he was a policeman, complete with handcuffs, a pistol and an embroidered shirt. He wasn’t a cop. But he handcuffed Ovidio Olivares Guerrero and loaded him into the truck and drove off, court records state. Guerrero hasn’t been seen since the pseudocops took him from his cousin’s house that day. And court records suggest he wasn’t even the target of a Gulf Cartel-ordered kidnapping. Olivares’ wife,...

Firefights, grenade explosions and chases broke out in Reynosa once again Wednesday night defying regular assurances by state officials that all was well. And unconfirmed reports from sources outside law enforcement point to the capture of a ranking lieutenant in the Gulf Cartel, possibly a plaza boss. Mexican authorities wouldn’t confirm or deny the capture. The clashes began as a chase between gunmen shortly after 7:30 p.m. before authorities got involved, according to preliminary information released by a local law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly. The official wouldn’t comment on the gunmen’s affiliation but said the fighting was...

Ex-convict Nordine Amrani went on a shooting and hand grenade spree in a public square in Liege, Belgium Tuesday after first killing someone at his home. Three were murdered at the square during the attack and one died later. “Armed with grenades and an automatic assault rifle, Amrani killed two teenaged boys and a 17-month-old baby on a square crowded with school-children and lunch-hour Christmas shoppers before shooting himself in the head.” Belgian politicians are now lining up to express their horror and – quicker than a Kardashian gets divorced – call for tougher gun laws… What’s that? It sounded...

"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...

One of the most violent days recently in northern Tamaulipas took place Tuesday as one large firefight broke out in Matamoros, another firefight took place in Rio Bravo, and various grenade attacks occurred in Reynosa, Ciudad Victoria and Rio Bravo. In Matamoros, fighting broke out about 5 p.m. near the intersection of Cuauhtémoc Avenue and Calle Doce. Soon after, another fight broke out along Calle Sexta near the intersection with Canales Avenue. The fighting soon moved to the San Francisco neighborhood, where it reportedly lasted close to 30 minutes. The fighting allegedly took place between two groups of gunmen, with...

The U.S. Congress will expand their investigation of Operation Fast and Furious to determine its connection to the smuggling of explosives ordinance into Mexico, a police source in Washington, DC, told the Law Enforcement Examiner on Saturday. According to the law enforcement source -- who requested anonymity -- besides the firearms and ammunition allowed to "walk" by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), grenades and explosives may have also been allowed smuggled across the border into Mexico, ending up in the hands of drug cartel members. Investigators are renewing their probe into a narco-terrorist attack...

At least four people have been reported as wounded following the explosion of a grenade at a bar in a central Reynosa neighborhood. It all happened at the Gallo de Oro bar near the intersection of Avenida Heron Rodriguez and Calle Toluca in the Colonia Simon Ramirez shortly before 5:30 p.m. Monday. Authorities told Action 4 News that at least four people were reported as wounded and taken to local hospitals for treatment. The medical condition of the wounded was not immediately available but the case remains under investigation by Tamaulipas State Police. Reynosa residents were the first to report...

FRONTON — U. S. Border Patrol agents seized six assault rifles, one rocket launcher, a grenade launcher, and three packages of what appeared to be C-4 explosives Tuesday near the Rio Grande. Agents patrolling the river near Fronton spotted a black bag in the brush. Inside, agents found the guns, rocket launcher, grenade launcher and explosives, along with a lower receiver for an assault rifle and 20 ammunition magazines. The weapons were turned over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives for further investigation

PHARR — An illegal immigrant faces federal charges after he was found with a stolen handgun and ammunition Friday. Pharr police arrested Mexican national Jose Wilmer Naranjo Aguilar, 25, about 2 a.m. Friday at Value Place, 1207 W. Expressway 83, after a report of shots fired at the motel. Police recovered a stolen .40-caliber Beretta pistol, 48 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition and 29 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, according to a complaint filed Saturday in U.S. District Court. Pharr police encountered Naranjo after the motel clerk reported a suspicious masked male running inside the building. Naranjo told Immigration and Customs...

Terror filled the streets of Rio Bravo as a group of men, presumably Zetas, threw at least five grenades at two bars and one business, injuring at least three people. Rio Bravo is across the Rio Grande from the Pharr-Donna Area. The attack began about 2:30 p.m. Saturday when a group of men in an SUV and a passenger car drove by the two bars and lobbed three grenades at the bar “La Lola” in the city’s East side, said a Mexican law enforcement official not authorized to speak to the media. He added that one grenade didn’t explode. Moments...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police in southern California have arrested 60 people and broken up an Iraqi criminal ring accused of selling drugs, machine guns and improvised bombs out of an immigrant social club, authorities said on Thursday. The swoop by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local police targeted a network operating out of El Cajon, which is near San Diego and close to the border with Mexico.