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Violence and a Seizure in Mazatlan
The last several weeks have witnessed a noticeable increase in drug cartel violence in Mazatlan, a Pacific port city in Sinaloa state popular with international tourists. The violence has included the beheading of a police officer, firefights and high-speed chases through city streets, and now a raid on a drug gang’s safe house that resulted in a significant weapons seizure. Among the items seized in the raid were the usual inventory of assault rifles, ballistic vests, handguns, ammunition, police uniforms and vehicles.
Significantly, policed also seized four homemade explosive devices in the raid. Authorities have not released details on the size and composition of the devices, and currently there is nothing to indicate that they were anything more than small pipe bombs, or even black powder devices designed to create more noise than physical damage. Nonetheless, the fact that bombs were recovered provides further evidence that Mexican drug traffickers are expanding their arsenals from strictly conventional weapons to improvised explosive devices.
The fact that these devices are rarely deployed suggests that this is still an emerging trend, albeit one that warrants careful observation. As cartel bombmakers gain more experience and overcome the learning curve associated with constructing such devices, it is certainly possible that the devices will become increasingly larger and more reliable. Any number of factors could be prompting this shift, though crackdowns on the supply of military-grade grenades, or tighter pressure in general on drug traffickers, could certainly tip the scales.
The Independence Day Attack
These concerns come in the wake of last week’s Independence Day attack in Morelia, Michoacan state, the first clear case of indiscriminate killing of civilians in Mexico’s drug war. The attack was attributed to a faction of Michoacan’s La Familia crime organization, and this past week saw the arrest of three suspected Zetas that confessed to perpetrating the attack in coordination with La Familia members. In the confession, at least one suspect admitted he had been ordered to carry out the operation, which was designed to cause fear and intimidation and was not directed at any one person or group.
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