Car bomb signals new dimension to Mexican drug war, page 1

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A drug cartel has used a car bomb for the first time in Mexico's decades-long fight against traffickers, setting a deadly trap against federal police in a city across the border from Texas, the mayor of Ciudad Juarez said Friday.

Mayor Jose Reyes said federal police have confirmed to him that a car bomb was used in the attack that killed three people Thursday.

It was the first time a drug cartel has used a bomb to attack Mexican security forces, marking an escalation in a raging drug war that already is extremely deadly: On Friday alone, a dozen people were killed and 21 wounded in a series of gun battles between soldiers and cartel gunmen in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, the federal Interior Department said.

In Thursday's bombing, federal police and paramedics were lured to the scene by a phone call reporting that shots were fired at a major intersection and a municipal police officer lay wounded, Reyes told The Associated Press.

As the paramedics were working on the wounded man, a parked car exploded, he said.

Reyes said authorities later determined that the wounded man was not a policeman, although he was wearing a fake uniform. The man was among the three people who died in the attack. The others were a federal police officer and a medical technician.

Brig. Gen. Eduardo Zarate, the commander of the regional military zone, told reporters that up to 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of explosives might have been used, although investigators were still trying to determine what type.

He said the bomb might have been detonated remotely with a cell phone, adding that burned batteries connecting to a mobile phone were found at the scene.

"From what distance? We don't know. But we think it was a distance that allowed (the assailants) to watch the area, waiting for the police to get out of their vehicle," Zarate said.

Source

Damn, when is this all going to cease? Give them a nuke, let's see how fast it takes for it to be used.

But seriously, whats going on across the border is getting worse, and is not showing any sign of positive progress. Now I can see even more clearly why some try to cross illegally. I'd do the same thing if I lived close to that kind of violence. Would'nt you?