El Chapo: Heavy fighting erupts in Culiacán

[dowie]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50092641

There has been heavy fighting in northern Mexico between the security forces and members of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel after one of the group's leaders was discovered.

Ovidio Guzmán López was found during a routine patrol in Culiacán.

He is the son of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, who was sentenced in the US to life in prison plus 30 years.
[...]
The state government said Ovidio Guzmán was found in a house by a police patrol on a routine search.

It said cartel members subsequently launched the huge attack in an attempt to seize him back from the authorities.

Ovidio Guzmán, said to be in his 20s, is believed to have played a key role in the Sinaloa cartel, following the arrest of his father.

He is wanted in the US on several drug-related charges, Mexican media report.

He was briefly detained before being released by the police.

There have been no official reports of fatalities, but pictures have emerged apparently showing dead bodies on the streets of the city.

This is absolutely nuts. Some of the stuff on social media is pretty gruesome, some not verified yet.

Cartel leader (son of former leader) gets arrested... full on **** storm erupts with cartel members coming onto the streets and shooting at police (including apparently a truck with a .50 cal machine-gun on the roof!). Seemingly they've downed at least one police/security forces helicopter and staged a mass prison break.

There was some footage on twitter of a bunch of dead police officers after some ambush and one of the stories re: why the police later released the cartel leader they'd only just arrested was seemingly because the cartel had other kidnapped police/security forces and were going to execute them.

They've basically got no control over that city and that cartel leader is currently untouchable for authorities, at least at the moment.

His dad managed to escape a couple of times himself but not with the official cooperation of the authorities like this but through bribing individuals.

 

[dowie]

gotta be careful with some of the stuff on social media but these are OK for the forum I think - the helicopter does blow up FYI

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1184996611769786370

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1185058648801693697

 

[dowie]

Looks like they're having a lot of fun on this rampage.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1185025117631307776

Surprised they're even bothering to cover their faces, they were pretty casual about being filmed actively blocking roads etc.. yesterday and even approaching security forces and shaking their hands.

The whole situation over there is just so nuts - it was only a few years ago that some corrupt Mayor and his wife had 43 student protestors taken off a bus by the police, arrested, handed over to cartel members and then murdered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping

 

[dowie]

I don't think those masks are being worn to primarily hide their faces, they're just wearing them for the ***** and giggles.

True - it is rather chilling. As a poster said earlier - Mexico needs US help here like Columbia had. They're too corrupt at the moment, security forces too compromised to deal with it properly.

Tbh.. with all this stuff in the neighbouring country then it is not too surprising that some Americans want a border wall and/or better monitoring of their southern border.

 

[dowie]

"'I don't think we need the intervention of a foreign government to deal with these cases,' Lopez Obrador said "

Given the absolute **** show they had when they tried to arrest a senior Cartel figure they could really do with some help.

US Special forces mentoring a carefully vetted local force, perhaps from their new "national guard" paramilitary unit + DEA + various intelligence assets ought to be able to help immensely with even just actually being able to arrest some of the leaders etc..

 

[dowie]

They did that already. The GAFE received training from American and Israeli special forces. Members then broke away to work as protection and enforcement for the Gulf Cartel, before forming their own organisation "Los Zetas".

That was some time ago - also bit of a difference between just having some training and being actively mentored and given intelligence support etc..

That can be highly effective as we saw recently with the Kurds in Syria/Iraq vs ISIS before Mango was dumb and pulled out US troops.