War in South Texas

Over the past few weeks, things have become very, very uneasy according to a good friend of mine down along the border who told me how the bridges were closed along the Rio yesterday due to violence in Mexico, however, other things have been going on.

He made me aware of a grenade attack on a bar at the end of last month:

Grenade tossed into ‘Booty' bar fails to explode
February 2, 2009 - 5:06 PM
Jared Taylor

PHARR - Tragedy was avoided after a grenade thrown into a tavern outside the city failed to explode.

Deputies do not know who tossed the explosive inside El Booty Lounge, 3701 N. "I" Road late Saturday night, said Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño.

Authorities evacuated the bar after they received a call about the explosive, which was apparently tossed into the bar. No injuries were reported and bomb did not detonate because both pins were not removed, Treviño said.

Then, it was announced that the grenade was linked to recent attacks on a TV Station and consulate:

Booty Lounge grenade linked to consulate, TV station attacks
February 10, 2009 - 5:43 PM
Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

A live grenade tossed into a Pharr bar last month came from the same cache of weapons used in recent attacks on a Monterrey television station and that city's U.S. Consulate, law enforcement officials said.

Investigators have traced the explosives used in each incident to a lot manufactured in South Korea and later discovered in a stash house believed to be run by the Zetas, the heavily armed paramilitary wing of the Tamaulipas-based Gulf Cartel.

Two days later, the attack was then said to be between to rival gangs:

Pharr trio handed drug charges after raid fails to yield explosives
February 12, 2009 - 4:36 PM
Jared Taylor
The Monitor

PHARR — Three men are behind bars after authorities raided their home Wednesday in a failed search for explosives linked to a grenade attack last month at a nearby bar.

Aldo Avendano, 27, Adrian Loredo, 20, and David Sanchez, 28, were all given felony drug charges Thursday afternoon in Pharr Municipal Court.

Several area law enforcement agencies raided the trio's Pharr residence at 1023 E. Bell St. on Wednesday, looking for explosives connected to a failed grenade attack Jan. 31 at El Booty Lounge on the 3700 block of North "I" Road.

The attack stemmed from a dispute between rival gangs the Tri-City Bombers and the Texas Chicano Brotherhood, authorities said.

Police could not confirm Thursday whether the three men arrested Wednesday were members of either gang, said Lt. Guadalupe Salinas, a Pharr police spokesman.

The grenade tossed into the Booty Lounge did not detonate.

Authorities did not find any explosives at the residence Wednesday. But they did seize about 24 pounds of marijuana, 3.8 grams of cocaine, and drug paraphernalia, as well as two shotguns and ammunition.

And yesterday, bridges along that section of the Texas/Mexico border were closed for a period of time due to violence:

Bloody Reynosa: At least five killed in street battle
Officials say violence and protests were not connected
February 18, 2009 - 12:15 AM
Sean Gaffney, Ana Ley and Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

REYNOSA — A violent street battle between suspected gangsters and Mexican soldiers killed at least five people Tuesday morning as separate protests against the military presence shut down parts of the city for several hours.

U.S. officials believe Hector Sauceda Gamboa, the suspected regional leader of the Gulf Cartel, was among the five gunmen Mexican authorities said were killed in the violence on the city's southwest side.

Mexican media accounts put the death toll as high as 20, with dozens more injured.

Sauceda, known as "El Karis," was shot during a fight with soldiers at his home in an affluent neighborhood behind the Plaza Real shopping center on Boulevard Hidalgo — one of the city's busiest streets, a U.S. federal official said.

Mexican officials would neither confirm nor deny he was killed, though the Mexican secretariat of public safety reported seven people had been detained. Authorities recovered a variety of weapons, including grenades, a 60 mm mortar and assorted small-arms ammunition.

The secretariat also reported seven federal police officers were injured — one of them seriously — during the fighting with gangsters armed with grenades and automatic rifles.

"We heard a lot of gunshots," screamed one child as he fled the Felipe Carrillo Puerto Primary School, holding his father's hand after the fighting had ended.

However, he did say that the local paper was not reporting fully in his opinion, more than likely due to wanting to keep this as quiet as possible as the economy along the border depends upon the Mexicans coming across to purchase goods. He said the San Antonio paper reported much more detail as did the Mexican News Papers and other media:

By Lynn Brezosky and Dudley Althaus - Hearst Newspapers

REYNOSA, Mexico — Running gunbattles between federal security officials and drug gang members left about a dozen people dead here Tuesday.

A statement from the Mexican government said seven security officers and five gunmen had been killed. However, witnesses said a pair of middle school students attempting to flee the violence also were killed.

One estimate said 15 people — all civilians caught in the crossfire — were wounded.

Neither the federal police nor the Defense Ministry immediately released information about what was behind the shootouts, but they largely were blamed on gangsters taking aim at federal security forces.

The gunfights came as northern Mexican protesters — angry about job losses, diesel fuel prices and military presence in their towns — caused the shutdown of international bridges along the border from Brownsville to Laredo for the third time in three weeks.

The protests, as many commented were more than likely paid by the Drug Dealers, and even if it were gangs fighting over turf in the grenade attack it is about money (of which the pool is shrinking) and it does not negate what occurred, across the Rio Grande or on sovereign Texas soil- war.

My friend said one other thing of note and he repeated to me a commenta client of his made quite recently:

"Even the drug dealers are having a hard time as the strippers are commenting on it too."

Look alive My Fellow Paranoids- it is coming closer every day.

WP

UPDATE

See here for pics that he sent to me and are not sourced as he said he received them second hand from a friend of his too.

UPDATE II - CORRECTION

I was made aware that last Friday, the 13th, an incident occurred in Matamoros, which is just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville, for those that do not know is here, and is about one hour Southeast of McAllen, Texas and you cannot get further South in Texas.

At around 9P last Friday, at the Soriana Supermarket in Matamoros, ten men wearing ski-masks jumped out of an Avalanche, that had Texas plates, carrying what appeared to be AK-47/AR-15's "TYPE" rifles and stopped a four-door sedan, pulled most of the occupants out, and left a driver and front passenger in the car. It seems three children were part of the group pulled out of the car and shot- the car was then shot up. One pistol armed man approached the car and pulled a woman from the front passenger seat and put her into the Avalanche- the masked men then took off North.

It is my understanding that this was witnessed by an off-duty BP agent who had been shopping there and received NO help from Mexican Authorities when he reported it.

I confirmed this with a very old and dear friend in Matamoros who also told me that the actual number killed AND wounded in Reynosa yesterday is around eighty (80). He was told this by a friend of his who is a government official in Reynosa.