MS-13 gang aims to gain control of cities, regions in U.S.

January 28, 2006

MS-13, a violent international gang that works for drug cartels in Central and South America are planning coordinated attacks along the U.S. border with Mexico, seeking to to 'begin gaining control of areas, cities and regions within the U.S.'

The shocking threat to the borders is contined within a Department of Homeland Security document distributed January 20 as a ‘officer safety alert.’

The information contained in the safety alert was generated following the interrogation of a captured member of Mara Savatrucha, or MS-13, a transnational criminal syndicate born from displaced El Salvadoran death squads from the 1980s.

The captured MS-13 member explained a plan to amass MS-13 members in Mexican border towns such as Nuevo Laredo, Acuna, Ojinaga and Juarez. The Gulf Cartel runs its drug smuggling operations from Del Rio, Texas, to south of Matamoros, Mexico. 'After enough members have been pre-positioned along the border, a coordinated attack using firearms is to commence against all law enforcement, to include Border Patrol,' the alert states.

Law enforcement officials along the border said they had not received the alert.

One Texas sheriff said he was angry because he has never received information from the Department of Homeland Security about this or any other threat along the Texas border. 'That is something that I was not aware of, but information like this should be given to us immediately,' he said.

He said that his deputies have seen increasing violence from drug cartels and what he believes are Mexican soldiers working for them.

An Arizona Sheriff said he was alarmed by the documented threat. 'That message seems to be the strongest type of indicator that they are seriously planning to use force,' he said.

The alert documents several armed, brazen attacks on Border Patrol agents between May and January.

Violence at the border has risen dramatically during the past couple of years, according to law enforcement officers all along the border.

Sgt. Benjamin Reyna of the Bisbee Police Department in Arizona said he's seen much more violence in the past several years. Reyna said cartel enforcers, smugglers and people suspected of being current and former Mexican military are taking shots at law enforcement officers.

The alert was based on a confrontation between a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector and 20 men armed with assault rifles in the area where a creek feeds into the Rio Grande in Zapata County on January 9. The inspector, who was on horseback, said a boat dropped the group off inside U.S. territory.

Some of the subjects appeared to be carrying automatic assault rifles, and threatened to shoot the inspector's dogs, the alert stated. The inspector had his gun and badge hidden under his jacket so the men could not see that he was a law enforcement agent. He told the armed men he was a ranchef, and believes 'this might have saved his life,' the alert stated.

The inspector, who is fluent in Spanish and has lived near the border all his life, believed the men were not Mexican nationals, based on their accents. The incident report concluded that the men probably were from Central America and members of either MS-13 or ex-Guatemalan Kaibiles, a military special forces unit specializing in jungle warfare and counterinsurgency.