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 Editorials | Issues | May 2007 
Mexican Drug Lords Modeling Tactics of al-Qaida
 Associated Press
| | Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, right, speaks during a news conference in Mexico City, Thursday, May 17, 2007. Garcia Luna said the attackers involved in Wednesday's gun battle in Cananea, Sonora were linked to a cell of the Gulf drug cartel that had been operating in the area, and suggested the kidnappings may have been one of the main goals of the attack. (AP/David Oziel) |
Mexico City - Mexico's top police official said Thursday that drug gangs are relying on a flow of arms from the United States and using terrorist strategies learned from al-Qaida to pressure the government to halt anti-drug efforts.
Mexican Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna complained of "a large flow of weapons ... many of which came from the United States," noting authorities have seized assault rifles, .50-caliber machine guns and hand grenades from the gangs.
"Just in the U.S. border zone, just over the bridge, there are 6,000 gun shops," Garcia Luna said. "That represents an opportunity for drug traffickers."
Mexico is struggling to battle drug gangs responsible for a recent spate of executions, and has sent thousands of police and army troops to several states. On Wednesday, a gang overran a town near the U.S. border, killing five policemen and two civilians before state and federal forces killed 15 of the gunmen.
Garcia Luna also described as a "terrorist strategy" the recent drug-gang videos showing grisly executions and warnings to officials or rival gangs, some of which have been leaked to the media and posted on the Internet.
Referring to one tape of an execution, he said, "this video has the format, and copies the scheme of a video used by al-Qaida," the Islamic terror group that has posted videos showing beheadings.
He said the videos and other violent acts seek "to make the authorities withdraw (from the drug fight)."
But Garcia Luna said the federal government will not give up its fight against the gangs.
"We cannot leave in their hands the capability, or the intent, of territorial control" of parts of Mexico, he said. |
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