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 News from Around the Americas | February 2006 
Cache of Explosives Found Near Border
 David Mclemore - The Dallas Morning News
| | Among the items seized: Automatic rifles, pipe bombs, grenades and materials for homemade bombs. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) |
San Antonio – Customs investigators seized grenades, pipe bombs and material to make improvised explosive devices twice in the last week in Laredo, federal law enforcement agents said Friday, a sign that the violence among warring drug cartels continues to escalate along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Laredo law enforcement officials called the weapons' discovery – which apparently marks the first time such explosives have been found in the city – a worrisome development.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Among the items seized: Automatic rifles, pipe bombs, grenades and materials for homemade bombs. "I'm very concerned about explosive devices that would cause major damage or injury," said Laredo Police Chief Agustin Dovalina III. "We're doing our best ... to keep the violence from spreading over to our side, the American side."
Julie Myers, head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau, said Friday that agents had seized "two improvised explosive devices and ... materials designed to make 33 more."
In a raid on a home in Laredo on Jan. 27, and another in Laredo on Thursday, agents found stacks of fully automatic rifles, military-style grenades, pipe bombs, gunpowder, drugs and homemade bombs similar to the IEDs used in Iraq. Some of the bombs were loaded with BBs and ball bearings.
Don Carter, special agent-in-charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Houston, said the investigation of who made the bombs and for what purpose is just getting started. He noted, however, that discovery of the improvised explosive devices marks a significant change in the picture of drug violence along the border.
"We've not seen any explosive device used during the outbreak of violence in Nuevo Laredo, though Mexican federal police have made several raids in Nuevo Laredo where hand grenades were found," Mr. Carter said. "But these devices had the capacity to kill, and the success here is that we found them before they were used. None of us wants to go to the scene of an explosion."
Al-Qaeda warning
The announcement Friday comes on the same day that the Val Verde County chief deputy warned federal lawmakers meeting in Houston that drug traffickers are helping terrorists with possible al-Qaeda ties cross the Texas-Mexico border into the United States. An FBI spokeswoman in Houston could not immediately confirm his account.
Terry Simons, chief deputy in Val Verde County, is part of a group that has been pushing state and federal officials for more law enforcement funding on the border. And he mentioned the threat in a presentation to U.S. Reps. John Culberson, R-Houston, and James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
Ms. Myers' announcement also follows a week in which Mexican and U.S. officials have challenged each other over so-called Mexican military incursions into the United States at the border near El Paso. Officials in Mexico announced Friday that they had identified the men responsible, although they are not in custody.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, said Friday that he's "encouraged by the law enforcement professionals for their actions, and for potentially saving numerous American lives with this seizure."
"The weapons seized are a stark reminder of the vulnerability created by the federal government's failure to secure our borders," said Mr. Cornyn, R-Texas. "Texans are rightly concerned by the state of our borders and the potential means for a terrorist to exploit that vulnerability."
As if to underscore the unpredictability of border violence, unidentified gunmen opened fire with assault rifles on a federal police convoy in Nuevo Laredo on Thursday as officers transported two suspects in an earlier shooting. Two police and one of the suspects were wounded. The daylight attack occurred just a block from the federal police headquarters.
There have been four shooting deaths in four days in Nuevo Laredo. Officials recorded 22 people killed by gunfire in the border city in January.
The eruption of violence in Mexico has claimed hundreds of lives in the last year as a result of the bloody turf battle between two Mexican trafficking organizations, the Gulf Cartel and the Federation, that seek control over the lucrative network of smuggling routes, known as La Plaza, that runs through Nuevo Laredo into Texas.
The day before the seizures of the explosives, task force agents arrested a 30-year-old Laredo man after he sold a fully automatic weapon to an undercover ICE agent.
At his home, agents found what amounted to a firearms factory, with six kits to make fully automatic rifles, 20 assembled weapons, including AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles, and assorted pistols.
Agents also seized silencers, bulletproof vests, sniper scopes, police scanners, pin-hole cameras, 2,600 rounds of ammunition, and an unspecified amount of cocaine.
"Our intelligence and witnesses tell us that it appeared the weapons we seized were headed to Mexico, which does support the idea that this involves violence between the cartels," Ms. Myers said.
"Keeping explosives and other high-powered weaponry out of the hands of violent criminal organizations is a central focus" of the task force, she said. "As these seizures demonstrate, ICE is working day and night with its task force partners to stem the tide of violence that has been ravaging the border communities in South Texas in recent months."
Task force successes
The discovery of the bomb-making materials is an indication of the success of ICE's latest border initiative, the border enforcement security task force – or BEST.
The task force, made up of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, was launched last July in Laredo as an intelligence-led attack on the leadership of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations responsible for the spike in violence along the border.
Task force investigations have led to the arrest of 28 suspects and the seizure of 36 assault rifles, 10 handguns, five silencers, a large quantity of weapons components and ammunition, as well as 700 pounds of marijuana, 336 pounds of cocaine and about $1.1 million in cash.
Three weeks ago, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced plans to expand the task force borderwide.
Ms. Myers' appearance in San Antonio on Friday marks her first press conference since her controversial appointment Jan. 4 as head of ICE.
The niece of former Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Myers, Ms. Myers, 36, was the subject of congressional questions about her lack of law-enforcement experience after her nomination. President Bush bypassed a congressional vote with a recess appointment, prompting howls of protest and complaints of cronyism.
Thursday, she brushed off the criticism, stressing that in her four weeks on the job, she's been very impressed with the agents under her command and that she is committed to working with them to target and take down the leaders of the drug cartels.
"The consequences of violence [are] felt on both sides of the border, and we're working very hard to end the violence and to make the nation safer," she said.
Email dmclemore@dallasnews.com |
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