In a boost for President Felipe CalderĂłn’s military strategy against Mexico’s warring narco gangs, soldiers arrested two top cartel leaders—including one accused of attacking a US consulate.
Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske was nominated the new drug czar, with Vice President Joe Biden identifying the war on the Mexican cartels as the top priority.
President Obama was briefed by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen about Mexico’s drug wars, calling for urgent military and intelligence aid in the war against the cartels.
Nearly 7,000 Mexican soldiers and federal police arrived in Ciudad Juárez, as 20 inmates were killed in a turf war between rival gangs at a Chihuahua state prison in the border city.
An unexploded bomb forced the evacuation of the airport in in Mexico’s violence-torn Ciudad Juárez, while a bomb threat cleared the border city’s courthouse as federal officials were holding a security meeting.
Convicted drug kingpin Miguel Caro Quintero AKA “Michael Jackson” was extradited to the US after eight years in a Mexican prison. With his brother Rafael, he is said to have led the Guadalajara Cartel.
Federal, state, and local law enforcement in California, Minnesota, and Maryland arrested 50 people who the US Justice Department claims are operatives of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.
Some 150 greeted the brothers Antonio and HĂ©ctor Cerezo Contreras as they left a prison in Mexico’s Morelos state, after eight years detainment on suspicion of ties to the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR).
Some 500,000 Mexican bus and truck drivers and owners held a one-day strike Feb. 16, slowing freight deliveries and forcing many passengers to find alternative transportation in 17 of the country’s states.
Gunmen fired on the motorcade of José Reyes Baeza Terrazas, governor of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, as it stopped at an intersection in the state capital, killing a bodyguard.
Roberto Orduña Cruz, police chief in Mexico’s violence-torn Ciudad Juárez, quit after several officers were slain this week and narco gangs pledged to kill an officer every 48 hours until he resigned.
Protesters blocked the international bridges in Juárez, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo to demand the Mexican army pull out of the violence-torn cities. But politicians said the protesters were paid by the cartels.
