US Citizens Killed In Mexico Bus Attacks

[Angelhair]

A string of shooting attacks on buses in northern Mexico left over ten people dead, including three U.S. citizens, authorities from both countries said Friday.

A group of five gunmen attacked three buses in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Thursday, killing a total of seven passengers in what authorities said appeared to be a violent robbery spree.

The Americans killed were a mother and her two daughters who were returning to visit relatives in the region, known as the Huasteca, said an official in the neighboring state of Hidalgo, where the mother was born.

Hidalgo state regional assistant secretary Jorge Rocha identified the dead U.S. mother as María Sánchez Hernández, 39, of Fort Worth, Texas, and the daughters as Karla, 19, and Cristina, 13. Rocha said all three held dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship. A 14-year-old Mexican nephew traveling with the three was also killed.

A U.S. Embassy official confirmed the women's nationalities, but could offer no information on their ages or hometowns. The official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said consular authorities were offering assistance to the victims' relatives.


SUMMARY
The attack occurred near the border with the state of Tamaulipas, an area that has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels

While funeral plans were unclear, Rocha said Sánchez Hernández's mother wants her daughter to be buried in Mexico.

Three other Mexican citizens were killed in the Thursday attacks on the three buses.

The five gunmen who allegedly carried out the attacks were later killed by soldiers.

Earlier in their spree, the gunmen shot to death three people and killed a fourth with grenade in the nearby town of El Higo, Veracruz.

On Thursday, the U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros, a Mexican border city north of where the attacks occurred, said in a statement that "several vehicles," including the buses, were attacked, but did not specify what the other vehicles were.

The consulate urged Americans to "exercise caution" when traveling in Veracruz, and "avoid intercity road travel at night."

While the specific area where the Thursday attacks occurred is not frequented by foreign travelers, other parts of the Huasteca — a hilly, verdant area on the Gulf coast — are popular among Mexican tourists and some foreigners.

The attack occurred near the border with the state of Tamaulipas, an area that has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.


Read more: US Citizens Killed In Mexico Bus Attacks | Fox News Latino

 

[jerryh60]

It's a sad state of affairs when you can't go home to visit your family. The way the country down there is going now, I would advise everyone just to stay away from Mexico until the government got things under control. Which seems like that will never happen. I would think that if Mexico lost all of it's tourist business, the people who rely on that business would be in an uproar. They might have enough clout and money to help turn things around. But until that happens, I would not set foot in any part of that country.

 

[waltky]

Zetas at the top of the heap...

Zetas are Mexico's 'largest drug gang', study says
25 January 2012 - President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 45,000 troops to fight the cartels

The Zetas cartel has become the biggest drug gang in Mexico, overtaking its bitter rival, the Sinaloa cartel, a new report suggests. The report by US security firm Stratfor says the Zetas now operate in more than half of all Mexican states. Stratfor says the Zetas' brutal violence seems to have given the gang an advantage over the Sinaloa cartel, which prefers to bribe people. Since 2007, 47,500 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico. The report says that drug-related violence in Mexico has persisted, despite the government's efforts to fight the cartels.

Brutal alliances

The report's authors say the violence has shifted, abating in some cities while worsening in others. It lists the cities of Veracruz, Monterrey, Matamoros and Durango as examples of places where violence has increased, while murders in Ciudad Juarez have dropped, although the city remains the most violent in Mexico. According to the study, most smaller drug gangs have been subsumed by either the Zetas or the Sinaloa cartel, turning the two groups into the predominant criminal forces in Mexico.

The Zetas control much of eastern Mexico, while the Sinaloa cartel has its stronghold in the west of the country. The authors also point out their differences in strategy. They say that the Zetas whose leadership is composed of ex-special operations soldiers, resort to extreme violence. The Sinaloa cartel, although also ruthless, prefers to bribe and corrupt people, as well as providing intelligence on rivals to the authorities.

Expanded markets

The report forecasts a continued expansion of Mexico's cartels into South America, a strategy which "eliminates middlemen and brings in more profit". Smuggling drugs into the US is now more difficult as a result of increased violence in northern Mexico and more stringent law enforcement along the border, Stratfor says. The cartels have responded to this by trafficking more to alternative markets in Europe and Australia.

President Felipe Calderon, whose term ends in December, is likely to continue using the military to take on the cartels, the report says. But its authors do not believe the Mexican government can eliminate the cartels "any more than it can end the drug trade". As long as the lucrative smuggling corridors to the US exist, other organisations "will inevitably fight to assume control over them".

BBC News - Zetas are Mexico's 'largest drug gang', study says

 

[Euro]

A string of shooting attacks on buses in northern Mexico left over ten people dead, including three U.S. citizens, authorities from both countries said Friday.

A group of five gunmen attacked three buses in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Thursday, killing a total of seven passengers in what authorities said appeared to be a violent robbery spree.

The Americans killed were a mother and her two daughters who were returning to visit relatives in the region, known as the Huasteca, said an official in the neighboring state of Hidalgo, where the mother was born.

Hidalgo state regional assistant secretary Jorge Rocha identified the dead U.S. mother as María Sánchez Hernández, 39, of Fort Worth, Texas, and the daughters as Karla, 19, and Cristina, 13. Rocha said all three held dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship. A 14-year-old Mexican nephew traveling with the three was also killed.

A U.S. Embassy official confirmed the women's nationalities, but could offer no information on their ages or hometowns. The official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said consular authorities were offering assistance to the victims' relatives.


SUMMARY
The attack occurred near the border with the state of Tamaulipas, an area that has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels

While funeral plans were unclear, Rocha said Sánchez Hernández's mother wants her daughter to be buried in Mexico.

Three other Mexican citizens were killed in the Thursday attacks on the three buses.

The five gunmen who allegedly carried out the attacks were later killed by soldiers.

Earlier in their spree, the gunmen shot to death three people and killed a fourth with grenade in the nearby town of El Higo, Veracruz.

On Thursday, the U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros, a Mexican border city north of where the attacks occurred, said in a statement that "several vehicles," including the buses, were attacked, but did not specify what the other vehicles were.

The consulate urged Americans to "exercise caution" when traveling in Veracruz, and "avoid intercity road travel at night."

While the specific area where the Thursday attacks occurred is not frequented by foreign travelers, other parts of the Huasteca — a hilly, verdant area on the Gulf coast — are popular among Mexican tourists and some foreigners.

The attack occurred near the border with the state of Tamaulipas, an area that has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.


Read more: US Citizens Killed In Mexico Bus Attacks | Fox News Latino

My suggestion is to take those 60.000 troops in Germany and those 60.000 in Japan. Deploy all of them in Mexico and at the border area.

In germany and japan they don’t do anything constructive, take’em to Mexico and let them start nation building in Mexico.

 

[waltky]

Texas Missionaries Slain In Northern Mexico...

2 Texas missionaries slain in violence-plagued area outside northern Mexico city of Monterrey
Wednesday, February 1,`12 — A missionary couple from Texas were slain in their home outside the violence-plagued northern industrial city of Monterrey, the U.S. Embassy and their family said Wednesday The embassy identified the couple as John and Wanda Casias.

Valerie Alirez, the eldest child of John Casias, told The Associated Press from her home in Greeley, Colorado, that one of her brothers found her father and stepmother Tuesday dead in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon. The family was originally from Amarillo, Texas, but relatives said John and Wanda Casias moved to Mexico in the late 1970s or early 1980s and made it their home. John Casias was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church in Santiago, Alirez said. Her brother, Shawn Casias, who lives in Monterrey, said he went to his parents’ home around 4 p.m. Tuesday to pick up a trailer. After he had hooked up the trailer outside he went into the home to say goodbye. He said he found Wanda Casias lying on the floor with an electrical cord around her neck and a gash from a blunt object on her head.

Missing from the house were a couple of computers, a plasma television and a safe that had been chiseled out of the wall. The couple’s Chevrolet Suburban was also missing, and Casias said he initially thought his father had been kidnapped. But about four or five hours later, he said, a forensic investigator informed him that his father’s body had been found in a storage room of a small building on the property. His father also had an electrical cord around his neck. Fighting between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels has inflicted a surge of violence and other crimes on Monterrey and the surrounding area since 2010. In poorer suburbs, entire blocks have been held up by gunmen and young people snatched off the streets.

Casias said a sister-in-law in Dallas had spoken to their mother around 11 a.m. Tuesday and everything was fine. So he believes there was about a five-hour window when the killings could have occurred before he showed up. He said the killers did not take everything they could have, leaving two of the three TV sets. He said perhaps they were warned that he was coming, because anyone watching the winding road approaching the home could have alerted them. “They’re scum. They’re not sophisticated,” he said.

Speaking from his parents’ home, Casias said the house was burglarized two years ago when the couple were on one of their periodic visits to the United States to talk at churches about their work in Mexico. “We’re convinced that it’s somebody he knew,” Casias said of the killers. He said authorities had some leads based on people seen around the home. John Casias was 76. He had recently priced a knee replacement because he couldn’t walk more than 100 yards (100 meters) without having to sit down, Shawn Casias said. Wanda Casias was 67. Casias said his parents held services and prayer meetings at a church about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from their home.

The couple maintained a website, JOHN & WANDA CASIAS Missionaries to Mexico , with details of their lives and their missionary work “The only hope for the Mexican people today is Jesus in them, the HOPE of glory,” they wrote in one dispatch from last summer. “I confess that it’s getting easier to witness to the wealthy, at least they are listening. The wealthy are fleeing to Canada and the USA for protection. The only problem is that when they return to re-new their visas the cartel is waiting, and either kill them of (sic) kidnap them for thousands of dollars, in some cases millions. The cartel has NO mercy or value for life. They are ruthless murderers!”

It was the second slaying involving American missionaries in a year in the Mexican region bordering Texas. In January 2011, a Texas couple who had been doing missionary work in Mexico for three decades were attacked at an illegal roadblock in one of the country’s most violent areas. Nancy Davis, 59, was fatally shot in the head while her husband, Sam, sped away from suspected drug cartel gunmen who may have wanted to steal their pickup truck, authorities said. The Davises were driving along the two-lane road that connects the city of San Fernando with the border city of Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Nuevo Leon.

Source

 

[laughinReaper]

I'm Take my vacation in the USA.

 

[ivanchase]

In Latin American countries the local gangs target the tourists so they can rob them for money for goods, in these attacks the American tourists get hurts or they can be get killed.

 

[Douger]

It's a sad state of affairs when you can't go home to visit your family. The way the country down there is going now, I would advise everyone just to stay away from Mexico until the government got things under control. Which seems like that will never happen. I would think that if Mexico lost all of it's tourist business, the people who rely on that business would be in an uproar. They might have enough clout and money to help turn things around. But until that happens, I would not set foot in any part of that country.

Wellllllll.Proof that you are an uniformed murkin nitwit( Don't feel bad-it's pandemic).

Mexico Sets New Tourism Record - PR Newswire - sacbee.com

 

[Skull Pilot]

It's a sad state of affairs when you can't go home to visit your family. The way the country down there is going now, I would advise everyone just to stay away from Mexico until the government got things under control. Which seems like that will never happen. I would think that if Mexico lost all of it's tourist business, the people who rely on that business would be in an uproar. They might have enough clout and money to help turn things around. But until that happens, I would not set foot in any part of that country.

Wellllllll.Proof that you are an uniformed murkin nitwit( Don't feel bad-it's pandemic).

Mexico Sets New Tourism Record - PR Newswire - sacbee.com

Just because there was a slight increase in tourism does not necessarily mean Mexico is a safe place.

That said there are about 100 places on my travel list before Mexico.

 

[CaughtInTheMid]

man, that's really sad.

 

[AmericaFirst88]

Stopping this kind of violence would go a long way towards stopping the migration of Mexicans into America. It sometimes seems like its a war zone down there.

 

[jerryh60]

It's a sad state of affairs when you can't go home to visit your family. The way the country down there is going now, I would advise everyone just to stay away from Mexico until the government got things under control. Which seems like that will never happen. I would think that if Mexico lost all of it's tourist business, the people who rely on that business would be in an uproar. They might have enough clout and money to help turn things around. But until that happens, I would not set foot in any part of that country.

Wellllllll.Proof that you are an uniformed murkin nitwit( Don't feel bad-it's pandemic).

Mexico Sets New Tourism Record - PR Newswire - sacbee.com

Didn't say anything about their numbers being down or going down. Mexico will always be a tourist haven since it's close and cheap. But most worthwhile travel organizations publish things referencing where definitely not to go due to violence in that area. My opinion, which this is a thread involving opinions, is that I personally am not going there, and I would not recommend going there to anyone that I cared about. Seems you don't see violence as a reason to avoid a certain place. Bet that attitude would change if it ever affected you or someone you know. It's only a matter of time before those hot little tourist spots are on the cartels list of places to be.

 

[Katzndogz]

Oh please, can't you recognize PR propaganda when you see it? Tourists are being kidnapped by the busload.

Tourism has increased because there is a press release saying so? Really? Is mexico going to say something different?

 

[texasdon]

It is dangerous enough to vaction even here in the USA--but to go to Mexico is completely insane at this time.
" It's a sad state of affairs when you can't go home to visit your family".

If your family is in Mexico--then what does that say about you? Could you be an illegal? Maybe so!!!

 

[waltky]

Don't take a taxi in Nuevo Leon...

Taxi drivers focus of Mexico cartels
Fri, Apr 13, 2012 - The killings of 13 Mexican taxi drivers in separate attacks this week underlined the vulnerability of a loosely regulated trade where workers are being threatened or used by drug gangs.

Eight drivers of unregistered taxis were shot dead on Tuesday in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, a hotspot in a wave of violence blamed on warring drug gangs which has left more than 50,000 dead nationwide in five years. A split between the Gulf drug gang and its former enforcers the Zetas is blamed for the sharp rise in violence in the region. “Each gang has strengthened its ranks with this group of workers [taxi drivers], who serve many purposes,” said an official from the Nuevo Leon state investigation agency, requesting anonymity. The gangs use “hawks” — spies who are usually teenagers — on the streets and drug dealers as well as taxi drivers, he said. “They use them as lookouts because they know the area and drive around without raising suspicion, to deal drugs and also to back up activities such as kidnappings, assaults and robberies,” the official added.

An armed gang traveling in at least two vehicles killed eight taxi drivers and injured two others in attacks on two taxi ranks in the town of Guadalupe, on the outskirts of Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon, on Tuesday. The killings made a total of 23 taxi drivers killed in the metropolitan area of Monterrey since May last year. The legendary resort city of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, has also seen attacks on taxi drivers rise alongside gangland-style killings in recent years. Acapulco police on Monday found seven bodies, including those of five taxi drivers, in a vehicle abandoned after being involved in a car chase with police.

Drug gangs sometimes threaten taxi drivers to get them to sign up while others who are killed have no known links to organized crime. “We’re experiencing a struggle between criminal groups and taxi drivers who are, unfortunately, very vulnerable to this dynamic because, even if some are shown to be involved in crimes, many of them work under threat or are innocent victims,” said Cesar Garza, president of the Security Commission of the Nuevo Leon Congress.

Traffic police and other officers recently experienced a similar wave of attacks in the region, but local authorities managed to clamp down by purging their ranks, Garza said. “Authorities have now strengthened control and it’s more difficult to infiltrate these corporations,” Garza said, suggesting that taxi drivers denounce criminal groups and cooperate with the authorities.

Taxi drivers focus of Mexico cartels - Taipei Times