El Centro

How Mexico Is Losing the War Against Cartels by Deborah Bonello – Vice

The automatic gunfire started just after dawn in the tiny, rural town of el Aguaje, southern Mexico. More than 30 gunmen ambushed a group of state policemen out on patrol, killing 14. Walkie-talkie audio later posted on social media depicted a grim picture of the aftermath. One policeman pleads for backup as his colleague groans in pain the background. “I’m dying,” he says. Photos and TV footage of the scene showed police trucks burned out, officers dead on the ground, bits of brain on the road.

Just a few days later, Mexico’s federal government experienced a different defeat when it attempted to arrest the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, Ovidio, in Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa, heartland of the Sinaloa Cartel. After initially detaining Ovidio, Mexican soldiers were forced to let him go when hundreds of cartel henchman surrounded the house in which the arrest took place. They brought the city to a standstill, burning trucks and firing on government forces. Videos showed civilian gunmen marauding around the city in pick-ups mounted with automatic weapons, firing machine guns into the streets.

Just before the police ambush, Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO), who coined the motto “hugs, not bullets” as a way of solving Mexico’s security issues, said that the country’s brutal, drug-related violence had reached an inflection point. He was right: the decade-long crime wars had reached a tipping point, but for the worse. The police massacre and the mess in Culiacán have served to amplify AMLO’s poorly defined security strategy, and homicides have spiked since he took power in December - making a joke of his government’s attempts to enforce the rule of law…

Read on.

USC 2019 Homegrown Violent Extremism Digital Summit

The United States faces an immediate threat from homegrown violent extremism (HVE), and today, that threat increasingly stems from right-wing and white supremacist terrorism. Preventing attacks and enhancing public safety demands better insight into how individuals radicalize to violence, the impact on the victims and the pathway to escape extremism.

On November 8, 2019, the University of Southern California (USC) will present the USC Homegrown Violent Extremism Digital Summit.

HVE concerns every American, and to ensure all stakeholders have an opportunity to see the event, USC is presenting the summit exclusively online and at no cost. No RSVP or registration is required. Simply visit our homepage – sci.usc.edu – at 9 AM PT on November 8, and the summit will stream live on your device.

The summit will consist of three 45-minute panel discussions. Find out more about the summit here.

Massacre of Americans Shows Drug War Rules No Longer Apply – Associated Press

There was a time when the violence of Mexico’s 2006-2012 drug war shocked Americans, but barely touched them. This time around — like everything else about the country’s renewed cartel conflict — it’s worse.

The slaughter of three U.S. women and six of their children, some infants, in the northern state of Sonora Monday punctured the old belief that the drug cartels would avoid killing foreigners, women or children. But it wasn’t the first, or the only, such case…

Read on.

Mexico’s Failure to Stem Violence Strains Relationship With U.S. by José de Córdoba and Jessica Donati – Wall Street Journal

Last week, hundreds of gunmen from the Sinaloa cartel overpowered military forces in fighting that killed at least a dozen people, blocked the airport and major roads, and terrorized the city of Culiacán for hours until the Mexican government capitulated and freed the son of legendary drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The stunning display of violence shows that drug cartels here are as strong as ever nearly 15 years after the Mexican government set about to challenge them head on, often with U.S. assistance. The government has arrested or killed many cartel leaders, weakening many crime groups and fragmenting others.

But the cost has been high. Since 2006, more than 250,000 people have been killed, according to Mexican government figures, most in the bitter internecine war between cartels for control of drug routes and territory. At least 40,000 more have been disappeared, many buried in clandestine graves, some dissolved in acid. From 2007 to 2019 the homicide rate has roughly tripled to 29 per 100,000 people.

Worse, last week’s events could further embolden the gangs to respond to threats by security forces with widespread violence and terror, cow Mexico’s stunned security forces and strain vital intelligence cooperation with the U.S., according to analysts, former and current U.S. officials and former Mexican security officials…

Read on.

Mexican Cartel Rules City After Gunbattle by David Luhnow, José de Cordoba and Santiago Pérez – Wall Street Journal

A son of the infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is captured. Cartel gunmen respond with a vicious attack on soldiers and civilians across a major Mexican city, killing at least eight people. The government gives in and releases the son, a top figure in the cartel.

One of the most violent and harrowing days in Mexico’s long fight against drug cartels unfolded late Thursday as members of the Sinaloa cartel wreaked havoc across Culiacán, a modern, middle-class city of around 800,000 residents, in response to what appeared to be a botched attempt to arrest Ovidio Guzmán.

Heavily-armed gunmen riding in convoys engaged in more than 70 separate firefights with Mexican security forces, set fires to vehicles, shot at government offices and engineered a jailbreak that freed 55 prisoners, with six recaptured, officials said. By nightfall, it was clear that the cartel was in charge of the city…

Read on.

Latin America Awash in Troubles Amid Protests, Uprisings and a Distracted Washington by Jim Wyss and Jacqueline Charles – Miami Herald

Violent uprisings, congressional coups, alleged narco-presidencies, political assassinations, a resurgent left.

As Washington focuses on impeachment, Syria and the 2020 presidential elections, Latin America and the Caribbean, once again, seem to be falling apart.

From Peru to Ecuador to Haiti to Honduras, there have been signs of trouble that have been either ignored or lost amid Washington’s focus on Venezuela and Cuba. Fanned by economic decline, growing protests, disgust with corruption and waning U.S. influence, not a week seems to go by without a new political wildfire breaking out…

Read on.

Drones Pose New Threat on Colombia’s Pacific Coast by Maria Alejandra Navarrete - InSight Crime

The discovery of two drones in the department of Nariño has raised fears about what impact such technology could have on the current conflict in the southwest of Colombia. 

On September 19, the Colombian Army announced that an operation had seized two Syma drones, loaded with 600 grams of explosives, on the road connecting the municipalities of Pasto and Tumaco, in the department of Nariño.

According to investigators in charge of the operation, from the Special Brigade Against Drug Trafficking (Brigada Especial contra el Narcotráfico – BRACNA), two detonators and various types of shrapnel were found alongside the explosives. 

According to authorities, the drones and detonators came from Ecuador and Peru.

In an official press release, the army declared that the drones allegedly belonged to the Oliver Sinisterra Front (Frente Oliver Sinisterra – FOS), dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC). The FOS, currently led by alias “Comandante Gringo,” was allegedly planning to carry out attacks against the military and civilian population in Tumaco.  

Signal inhibitors were used to carry out the operation, conducted in coordination with the police, so as to avoid the devices being activated remotely during the controlled destruction of the explosives…

Read on.

Peru’s Shining Path Plots Unlikely Return to Power by Sergio Saffon – InSight Crime

A 400-page document by Peru’s Shining Path guerrillas details the group’s elaborate plans to increase drug trafficking operations and attacks on the military, which may be possible in the group’s limited stronghold. But its long-held ultimate goal — to overthrow Peru’s government — is farfetched. 

During an operation at the beginning of this year, Peruvian security forces obtained the book-length document, which offers a window on an ambitious political and military strategy culminating in the 2021 Bicentennial of Peru’s independence, América Noticias reported.

The document, found in the possession of a mid-level commander in the organization, was analyzed by members of the Counter-Terrorism Directorate of Peru’s National Police (Dirección de Lucha contra el Terrorismo de la Policía Nacional del Perú – DIRCOTE). According to agents, the Shining Path looks to increase its participation in drug trafficking and its use of violent tactics including killings and ambushes. 

The group’s immediate objective appears to be intensifying attacks against public forces. Its medium-term objective is to regain control of territories where the group has historically had a presence. The long-term goal would be to take up arms and seize power from Peru’s government…

Read on.