For a map, click here. For a map of Coahuila state, click here
By Chris Covert
A comprehensive security operation based on a framework used successfully in two Mexican southern states was begun Thursday with the arrival of fresh troops in the La Laguna region on Mexico, according to Mexican news accounts.
About 200 reinforcements including Mexican Army and Polica Federal (PF) troops arrived Thursday night and immediately began patrol activities in Torreon, Coahuila and neighboring Gomez Palacio, Durango.
| The issue which should be a prime concern for the Mexican republic, is the tendency of cartels to turn small indigenous communities into serf communities which exist for the enrichment of the cartels. In turn armed cartel groups in the pay of drug cartels have in the past acted like the soldiers of a local king in punishing its errant charges with murders and immolation of homes. |
General Gonzalez Barreda is headquartered in Torreon. Several military zones under Gonzalez Barreda's command, roughly equivalent to a regiment, include the 5th and 6th Military Zones and the 28th Military Zone. New reinforcements in the wake of the raising of additional army troops have arrived in Torreon and in Juarez, Chihuahua, although much of the federal presence in Juarez has been withdrawn due to improved security.
In addition, work is to commence both in Durango state which is directly adjacent to Torreon, Coahuila, and in Coahuila to purge police ranks of criminals in municipal as well as state police forces of Coahuila and Durango. Confidence tests of 1,700 new Coahuila state police recruits are already underway and will complete early next month.
Mexican military units, including army as well as naval infantry units have been conducting counternarcotics operations in recent weeks in the area between Saltillo, Coahuila, the capital of Coahuila and Piedra Negreas, Coahuila, which sits on the US border.
Those operations have yielded some success as a number of drug interdictions, mainly of marijuana as well as weapons and munitions.
The La Laguna region sits on a major east-west highway in Mexico which is due to be expanded to four lanes in the near future. The road expansion has been touted as a boon to commerce nationwide, but the fact is that La Laguna is also the confluence of four major Mexican federal highways, which the drug cartels have been using to move product, munitions and personnel.
The highway expansion is partially complete from the Sinaloa state port city of Mazatlan halfway to Durango city. Its opening has already sparked problems as drug cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas have been fighting for control of area in the Mexican Sierras for drug production assets.
The issue which should be a prime concern for the Mexican republic is the tendency of cartels to turn small indigenous communities into serf communities which exist for the enrichment of the cartels. In turn armed cartel groups in the pay of drug cartels have in the past acted like the soldiers of a local king in punishing its errant charges with murders and immolation of homes
The response of Mexican security forces in the past has been reactive at best.
Whatever strategy General Gonzalez Barreda will adopt to end drug gang activities in La Laguna, it is clear he and other northern Mexican army commanders are starting to see the benefits of additional troop reinforcements.
Last spring the national legislature, the Chamber of Deputies funded the addition of 18 new rifle battalions, most of which would be deployed in northern Mexican states. The first of those newly raised troops appeared early last summer. It is known that four of the 18 battalions have been deployed to Tamaulipas, the worst of the northern states in terms of security, including one battalion deployed to Nuevo Laredo, a Los Zetas stronghold and crossing into the US.
According to newspaper reports at least three rifle battalions have been deployed to the state of Zacatecas, which is another Los Zetas stronghold and borders Coahuila to the south. Major counternarcotics operations by Mexican federal security forces early last summer in the southern regions of Zacatecas and northern zones of Jalisco state have weakened Los Zetas' hold on the area. With the additional federal troops in the area their hold is likely to get more tenuous as time goes on.
At least one battalion is known to have been deployed to Juarez, Chihuahua, though it is likely that force was either withdrawn a few weeks ago, or it does no patrolling in the streets of Juarez, and remains in the confines of its bases.
The current security operation is expected to last five months, after which General Gonzalez Barreda will determine what happens next.
If the model used in Veracruz and Guerreo states are any indication, violent crime will plummet over the next few months