Mexican drug lord orders deadly force
By Josh Meyer |Tribune Newspapers - May 3, 2009
The reputed head of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel has instructed his army of associates to use deadly force if necessary to protect their increasingly contested trafficking operations, even against U.S. law enforcement, according to authorities here and in Washington.
The threatened offensive by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted man, was described by U.S. officials as being highly unusual, given that his associates have avoided violent confrontations with American law enforcement officers, and have kept their blood feuds with fellow traffickers largely south of the border.
Guzman is believed to have delivered the message personally in early March, during a three-day gathering of his associates in Sonoita, a small Mexican town just a few miles south of the Arizona border, according to U.S. intelligence bulletins sent to several state and federal law enforcement officials.
The Sonoita meeting is one of many indications that Mexico’s most-wanted man is becoming more brazen even in the face of a massive Mexican government crackdown on his activities and deadly turf rivalries with other traffickers.
Reports of Guzman’s recent activities, gathered through U.S. informants, wiretaps and other means, have prompted a flurry of warnings to local, state and federal authorities in border states. They said they have been instructed to use extreme caution when confronting people suspected of smuggling drugs and illegal aliens north from Mexico, or ferrying weapons and cash south from the United States, officials familiar with those warnings said.
Some of the U.S. intelligence suggests that Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, is on the defensive due to enforcement efforts in Mexico and the U.S., and no longer can afford to ditch valuable cargoes if rival traffickers or authorities interdict them as they make their way north. Thomas M. Harrigan, the chief of operations in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said virtually all of the violence remains in Mexico, but that U.S. authorities are alarmed that attacks on police, soldiers, government officials, journalists and other potential opponents have intensified near the border.
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