Friday, March 5, 2010

Mexican Cartels And Their Allies Unite To Fight Against Los Zetas Cartel Along The Southern Bordertowns

Top photo: Mexico's Drug Cartel graphic design prepared by Stratfor and the Mexican Attorney's General Office.
Bottom photo: A truck marked with a side door sign "C.D.G." for the Gulf Cartel is confiscated by Mexican authorities. (Photo Narco Trafico en Mexico)

Banners posted in Reynosa and other areas say the Gulf Cartel and its allies have united against Los Zetas

By H. Nelson Goodson
March 5, 2010

Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico - Unofficial reports indicate a raging drug war between a front of organized drug cartels united to defeat Los Zetas has been in operation for a few weeks. Sporadic gun battles between drug cartels have been reported along the Southern U.S.-Mexico border towns.
Last weekend, at least 5 five gun battles between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel in Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, and Camargo, Tamaulipas, and the state of Nuevo Leon, resulted in multiple e-mail warnings from the U.S. Consulates from the Southern border towns between Matamoros to Nuevo Laredo warning U.S. Citizens and officials to avoid travel into Mexico.
Ramón Garza Barrios, Mayor of Nuevo Laredo acknowledged only two attacks. Garza said, the first was reported on February 19, and the second one was reported on February 26. The second attack targeted two police stations and did "minor damage," Garza confirmed. Laredo, Texas is adjacent to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
The recent drug cartel wars along the Southern border towns has caused an economic effect, attributing to tourist avoiding travel into Mexico, U.S. residents from shopping and eating at restaurants in Mexico's side, and development investment along the U.S. to stall and major corporations investing and developing in areas far from the border.
The U.S. Consulate in Reynosa has been closed until further notice. Last month, a couple of U.S. International bridges in Southern Texas were closed temperarily to prevent the drug war to spill over to the U.S. from Mexico.
Home made banners from alleged members of the newly formed United Mexican Drug Cartel Federation (UMDCF) against Los Zetas were posted around Reynosa and other areas in the region telling the Mexican Military Police to leave and vowing that the Gulf Cartel and its allies would get rid of Los Zetas. Recently, UMDCF have launched attacks on Los Zetas along the border towns. Their search and attack operations have led UMDCF to go from border town to border town tracking and attempting to kill suspected members of Los Zetas. Members of the UMDCF are heavily armed with granade launchers and high caliber weapons, which Mexican federal authorities have yet to confirm. Media blockout in the border towns and region including Camargo, Matamoros, Reynosa and Mier have made information difficult to confirm, while media outlets are left to rely on "human intelligence" through Facebook, Twitter, e-mails and social networks in the affected areas. 
Los Zetas once were the strong arm of the Gulf Cartel, but broke away and began their own Los Zetas Cartel. They extended their enforcement work to other cartels, according to Mexican authorities. Los Zetas are known for kidnapping, torturing and beheading their rivals, and extorting local businesses for protection.
The united UMDCF alliance is composed of the Gulf Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, the Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel Mileño and other allies, feuding against Los Zetas, Cartel Juarez, Beltran Leyva Cartel and some municipal police departments who work with the Zetas. The disputed territories are the municipalities of Reynosa, and Matamoros in Tamaulipas. Factions of the cartels have extended their dispute to municipalities of Monterrey and Guadalupe in the state of Nuevo Leon.
Both Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have been recruiting men to help fight counterparts from Veracruz, Puebla, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Sonora and Coahuila, the Mexican military police confirmed.
Mexican authorities have found within the last two weeks about 50 abandon vehicles with traces of blood, but the cartels seem to pick up bodies and their wounded men to avoid detection by authorities.
A surge of violence is expected to reach Miguel Alemán and Nuevo Laredo, which are seen as strategic cities for control by the cartels due to their close proximity to the U.S. border.
Within the last two months in 2010, a total of 52 executions were reported in Matamoros, Reynosa, Miguel Alemán and Camargo, according to Mexican federal authorities.
Last Friday on February 26, a major assault and confrontation between Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel lasted for more than 7 hours in Camargo. Residents were cut off from communication networks and a woman disappointed with local and state officials in Tamaulipas who were denying any deadly confrontations, went out the next morning and video recorded the aftermath of the drug war with her cell phone video camera.
Camargo residents have been staying in their homes under a siege, according to the unidentified woman who narrated the aftermath video scene. (http://bit.ly/9u9GIT)
Near Mier city, Mexican military police intercepted a convoy of 10-20 trucks and SUV's with signs taped to the side door marking the initials "C.D.G." for the Gulf Cartel. The C.D.G. convoy had just attacked a local police station believed to support Los Zetas and had taken 10 municipal police officers hostage after the attack. The confrontation between military police and the C.D.G. lasted at least two hours, and federal military police could not confirm, if in fact the 10 police officers were actually working with Los Zetas.

Related articles:

Mexican Tamaulipas State Officials Denied Deadly Confrontations, But Aftermath Video Proves Otherwise http://bit.ly/avXy41

Gulf Cartel kingpin sentenced to 25 years in a U.S federal prison http://bit.ly/c2Nt1Z

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