In The News : TNA Online  Last Updated: Feb 5th, 2005 - 10:49:18

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Mexican Narco-Terrorists Prey on U.S. Citizens
by William Norman Grigg
February 4, 2005
 
 
With tens of thousands of U.S. troops, and billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds, being used to secure Iraq’s borders, U.S. citizens living near the border with Mexico have fallen prey to agents of Mexican drug cartels.

The last year has seen a “dramatically increased number of U.S. citizens who have recently been reported missing or kidnapped along the border, especially around Nuevo Laredo,” reported the January 22 Washington Post dispatch from the Mexican border town. In December, “U.S. consular officials here issued a warning to the thousands of Americans who cross the bridge each week, including Mexican Americans visiting relatives or shopping and tourists on short sightseeing trips.”

The Texas city of Laredo and its Mexican counterpart, Nuevo Laredo, “seem like one city … connected by language, blood, culture and commerce,” notes the Post. “About 40 percent of the goods passing from Mexico into the United States cross the border here by truck or rail” — and that figure includes an unquantifiable fortune in illicit narcotics.

Referring to 21 U.S. citizens who had been kidnapped or had disappeared between August and December, the consular alert advised: “U.S. citizens are urged to be especially aware of safety and security concerns when traveling through or visiting Nuevo Laredo.” Like a tsunami is produced by a shift in tectonic plates deep under the sea, the kidnappings reflect a turf war that is taking place between rival drug cartels, which in Mexico have the status of quasi-state organizations. One prominent drug gang, the Zetas, is “composed of former military commandos who deserted from the Mexican army [and have] gone into the business of kidnapping for ransom.”