Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jan 2005
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2005 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Alfredo Corchado, The Dallas Morning News

FBI TELLS AGENTS CARTEL PLOTTING AGAINST THEM

Zetas May Try To Kidnap, Kill 2 At Agency, Internal Memo Says

McALLEN, Texas - An already tense situation along the border worsened
Saturday after an internal FBI memo warned that a ruthless Mexican
drug cartel could be plotting to kidnap and murder U.S. federal law
enforcement agents.

Although the plot specifically targets two unidentified agents of the
FBI, the bulletin warns that "due to the nature of this immediate
threat, all law enforcement personnel are being cautioned to ensure
appropriate measures are taken as well as to keep a high degree of
vigilance," the bulletin stated.

The threats originate from members of the Osiel Cardenas-Guillen
cartel, the bulletin said, "an extremely violent Mexican drug
trafficking organization commonly referred to as the Gulf Cartel. This
cartel is alleged to have recently assembled over 250 armed men near
the Mexican border town of Matamoros," across the border from
Brownsville.

The Gulf cartel, which has a presence in 13 Mexican states, operates
with a paramilitary arm, integrated from ex-members of the Mexican
armed forces known as the Zetas. They remain loyal to Mr. Cardenas,
one of the country's most powerful cartel bosses jailed in a Mexican
federal prison.

A "contingent of this group," the bulletin continued, "are believed to
have valid visas and passports, allowing them legal entry into the
United States. It is further implied that once kidnapped in the U.S.,
these two agents will be returned to Mexico where they will be killed."

The consequences of this and other recent warnings were evident along
the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico, as shoppers again stayed away
from popular border destinations, from Ciudad Juarez to Reynosa.

'2nd to terrorists'

In Brownsville, a group of Texas lawmakers who had been scheduled to
meet with the Tamaulipas governor and mayors, rearranged their agenda
so that their Mexican counterparts could instead meet them on the U.S.
side.

"Any threat from the cartels or splinter groups has to be taken
seriously by law enforcement," said Phil Jordan, former director of
the El Paso Intelligence Center. "These organizations operate at
almost at the level of terrorist. Their ruthlessness is only second to
terrorists."

The warning follows a crackdown by the Mexican government on the Gulf
cartel, which has made its home in this region stretching from Nuevo
Laredo to Reynosa and Matamoros.

Two weeks ago, federal authorities raided La Palma prison in the state
of Mexico to take back control of the institution from jailed kingpins
- -- chiefly Benjamin Arellano Filix, the head of the Tijuana Cartel,
and Mr. Cardenas, the head of the Gulf cartel.

A week later, the bodies of six workers at a maximum-security prison
in the city of Matamoros were found stuffed into a van just outside
the prison walls.Mexican authorities believe they were killed by
members of the Zetas.

U.S. warning

Last Sunday, about 650 federal agents and 30 tanks stormed the
Matamoros penitentiary. They now patrol Matamoros and Reynosa, just
across from McAllen.

The extreme violence along the border, plus a rash of kidnappings of
U.S. citizens -- 25 in the last six months in Nuevo Laredo alone --
led to a travel alert by the State Department, accompanied by a letter
from U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza. The incident sparked a diplomatic
spat between the two sides.

On Saturday, Mr. Garza had breakfast with Foreign Minister Luis
Ernesto Derbez in which the two sides tried to defuse the incident
sparked by the U.S. travel warning.

In a joint statement, Mr. Garza said he originally sought to "clarify"
the State Department's alert by trying to "highlight the fact that the
wave of border violence is a result of the successful efforts of
President [Vicente] Fox's administration in the fight against
organized crime."

The two sides also agreed that "most urban violence in the border
region is caused by fighting among gangs, mainly drug traffickers,
struggling for control of the narcotics trade, as ever more leaders of
major criminal organizations have been arrested by Mexican law
enforcement officials."
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