Cartel members burn vehicles and businesses, block roads and fight security forces in different cities

MEXICO CITY—Gunmen from some of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels rampaged through several cities, burning cars and buses and firing on troops, leaving residents homebound and businesses closed this past weekend in Tijuana, one of the country’s largest cities.

The outburst of seemingly unrelated violence in at least four states over several days last week reinforced how powerful organized crime groups that control swaths of the country continue to challenge Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s strategy to address what he says are the economic roots of the problem.

On Friday, gang members blocked roads and set some 20 vehicles on fire in the border cities of Tijuana, across from San Diego, Calif., and Mexicali, leaving one person injured, authorities said. The day before, gang members killed 10 people in Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, eight of them civilians, following a brawl between quarreling gangs at a local prison.

“It wasn’t just the confrontation between two groups, but they started firing at civilians, innocent people, that’s what’s most regrettable about this matter,” Mr. López Obrador said at his daily press conference last week.



Earlier in the week, gang members set fire to dozens of vehicles and businesses, and took part in shootouts with security forces in Jalisco and Guanajuato states, in western and central Mexico. Some 25 Oxxo stores, part of the country’s largest convenience-store chain, were burned in Guanajuato. No one died in the fires.


Mexican federal forces patrolled the streets of Ciudad Juárez on Tuesday.
PHOTO: JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ/REUTERS
The violence is a testament to the growing activity of more than 200 criminal groups operating in Mexico, where the homicide rate has tripled in the last 15 years, analysts say. A U.S. general last year estimated that criminal gangs control around a third of Mexico’s territory.

The number of homicides fell 3% to 35,600 in 2021 from the previous year, or 28 per 100,000 people, according to government statistics, but numbers remain near all-time highs. There have been 42 mass killings—meaning five more people killed in one incident—in the first half of this year, compared with 62 in the entire 2021, according to an estimate by the Reforma newspaper, including the public execution of 17 people in western Michoacán state at the hands of a rival gang.

The rampage shows that Mr. López Obrador, a leftist nationalist who came to power in 2018 promising to pacify the country, is failing to tame out-of-control crime, said Josué González, a security consultant and former director of criminal policy at Mexico’s public security ministry.

Mr. López Obrador took office promising to focus more on the economic roots of crime than in confronting criminal gangs—a strategy he popularly named “hugs, not bullets.”

“There is no clear strategy against the criminal groups. That government inaction, that passivity, has sent criminals the message that there won’t be consequences,” said Mr. González. “It’s the law of the strongest.”

Mr. López Obrador’s spokesman, Jesús Ramírez, denied Mexico’s government is acting passively on organized crime. He said homicides are down, and that most of the violence is concentrated in 50 municipalities in six of Mexico’s 32 states. He said the government has arrested more than 140 leaders of drug cartels.


A soldier checked a vehicle at a military checkpoint in Ciudad Juárez on Tuesday.
PHOTO: JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ/REUTERS
The president said on Monday at his daily conference that his security policy is working, and said right-wing opponents and conservative press had created an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear with sensationalist coverage.

“I say to the people of Mexico: stay calm, there is governability, there is stability,” he said.

Some 400,000 Mexicans have been killed, and more than 85,000 disappeared, since gang violence exploded beginning in 2007 after former President Felipe Calderón deployed the armed forces against drug gangs.

Mr. López Obrador, who initially objected to the use of the military against the gangs, increased the army’s role once in office. By the end of 2021 he had deployed 90,000 soldiers, who mostly work patrolling hot spots, up from 55,000 in 2018, according to Mexico’s army.

“The militarization strategy has been a total failure,” said Stephen Woodman, senior public security analyst at Advanced Intelligence Solutions, a local research firm. He said the army, which lacks investigative capacities, is ineffective in the face of a complex array of criminal groups.

Mr. Ramírez, the president’s spokesman, said the deployment of the army has been effective in reducing criminality across the country. He said the government inherited a situation where entire territories were controlled by gangs.

The Jalisco New Generation cartel, Mexico’s fastest-growing drug gang, known for its paramilitary tactics, was behind much of last week’s violence, state and federal authorities said.


Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, addressing journalists last week, had hoped to address what he says are the economic roots of the violence.
PHOTO: EYEPIX/ZUMA PRESS
Several of the 17 suspects detained in Baja California state, home to Tijuana, were members of the Jalisco cartel, local authorities said. The gang is fighting a bloody turf war with the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s other chief cartel, to control drug trafficking, extortion of businesses and other illicit activities in the region.

Violence in Jalisco and Guanajuato erupted when the Mexican army attempted to arrest a high-ranking leader of the Jalisco cartel, said Mexican Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval. In Ciudad Juárez, the violence was sparked by a fight between members of the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels, he said.

In Tijuana, where thousands of Americans live and commute to San Diego, the U.S. Consulate late on Friday ordered U.S. government personnel “to shelter in place until further notice” amid the swirling violence. The alert was lifted Sunday.

The mayor of Tijuana, who belongs to Mr. López Obrador’s Morena party, in a video posted online late Friday urged cartels “to settle debts with those who didn’t pay what they owe, not with families and hardworking citizens.” She later said she was referring to debts among criminal groups, not to extortion fees.

Nearly 400 soldiers were sent to Tijuana during the weekend to help to reinforce security, Mexican officials said.

During the weekend, the city was unusually quiet, with very few people on the streets, and most businesses closed, residents said. Some bus lines stopped services. “Tijuana Wakes Up Semiparalyzed After Friday’s Violence,” read a Saturday headline of the El Sol de Tijuana newspaper.

“The city looked totally empty. It was horrible. People are scared,” said Yolanda Morales, a Tijuana resident. The city has returned to a tense normalcy, she said.

link; https://www.wsj.com/articles/m...7?mod=hp_featst_pos3

Mr. López Obrador took office promising to focus more on the economic roots of crime than in confronting criminal gangs—a strategy he popularly named “hugs, not bullets.”

Guess that leftist strategy is working about as well for them as it does for us.

quote:

Some 400,000 Mexicans have been killed, and more than 85,000 disappeared, since gang violence exploded beginning in 2007 after former President Felipe Calderón deployed the armed forces against drug gangs.

If true, that is virtually equal to our World War II dead.

No linky.
Makes it hard for me to share.

^^^^^^^^^^^
FIFY

They are not dead. Just in USA

CERTAINLY they have those “NO FIREARMS ALLOWED” signs posted everywhere, right!?!? Like there are in school zones here. I mean, c’mon!! That should stop ANYONE from commiting “gun violence”, as the Libtards lovingly call it.