Reports from the War

Don't recall seeing too much about the Iraq or Afghanistan wars this past week (but the Libya war, of course, was big news).

So, how about news from the Mexican front, the war down in Mexico?

It's been better than a week, now, since men strode into a casino in Monterrey in broad daylight, pouring gasoline about, and torching the place. People flocked for the doors, but many didn't make it in time, 52 being killed. Five arsonists, I believe all associated with the Zetas Cartel, were apprehended and then a police officer. The casino owner is believed to have fled the country, and Interpol called in to search him out so he can be questioned. Then, a video of the mayor's brother surfaced, showing him not long before the attack receiving money at the casino. Speculation then spread that the casino corruption was tied to city hall, but the mayor said such was not the case and called on his brother to be responsible for his own actions. The attack came days before President Felipe Calderon's state of the nation speech, so it was a focus of his remarks. He vowed to remove corruption from police agencies before leaving office.

Other news? Well, they did arrest no less than 31 members of Los Zetas. I believe that was yesterday. Thirty-one. That's a pretty big haul. And -- get this -- 14 of them were policemen.

And, the No. 2 man in the Sinaloa Cartel is no more. Samuel Flores-Barrega, aka Metro 3, was found shot dead, his body and that of a policeman in a pickup truck along the Monterrey-Reynosa Highway.

Ahh, Monterrey, again.

I read a week or so ago of a tourist official in Mexico suggesting that visiting that country was safe, as the tourist sites are not in places where the violence is taking place. I can't recall hearing of any tourists being killed, so it might be right that they are relatively safe. Then again, Monterrey is a tourist city. There were but 267 murders there in 2009, before the Zetas broke off from the Gulf Cartel and the two commenced warring with each other. This year, so far, there have been about 1,100.

Oh, some of the news from the war's front is not from Mexico, but right out of Utah. The Drug Enforcement Agency arrested seven members of the Sinaloa Cartel, including the man who coordinated the flow of drugs into Utah for Sinaloa. They caught him on the I-15 near Nephi. Other arrests came in South Jordan and at the Mi Ranchito restaurant. The arrests were part of Operation Broken Glass, which has netted about 30 arrests. Authorities say it has decimated that drug ring and they expect it to have an immediate impact on the availability of drugs on the streets.

Salt Lake City was identified, along with Las Vegas, as a distribution center for drugs coming across the Mexico-California border, the drugs fanning out from Salt Lake City and Las Vegas to other locations.

Well, there's a touch of news from the war's front. In closing, the past week also marked the one-year anniversary of three other significant events in the Mexican drug war. On Aug. 26, news broke of the 72 migrants from Central and South America who were massacred by the Zetas about 100 miles from crossing the border, The migrants were kidnapped and told to pay extortion money. Being poor, they couldn't. They were then offered employment with the Zetas (slavery, in essence), but they refused to join up.

The second anniversary was Aug. 30, when the legendary "La Barbie," Edgar Valdez-Villarreal, was arrested. La Barbie was heir apparent in the Beltran Leyva gang.

The third anniversary is of the borderlandbeat.com story of one Marisolina, and how she survived a concentration camp -- a death camp -- a drug cartel had for those it intercepts while they are attempting to immigrate illegally. Marisolina lacked the $3,000 ransom money, not having any relatives in the U.S. to pay it for her and certainly not having any relatives back in El Salvador rich enough to pay the ransom. So, she was taken to the "safe house" where others who had been kidnapped were kept, and she became a cook, As her story goes, she got on the good side of El Perro, the man charged with executing the migrants. El Perro told her he chopped them into pieces to fit them in drums, then burned them till nothing was left. Marisolina was eventually let go, and ran to authorities with her story. The attorney general, though, shortly concluded she was still a Zeta and indicted her.

All three anniversaries leave us begging to know what has happened since. Whatever became of the loan survivor of the massacre of the 72 migrants? Whatever became of La Barbie? Was he extradited to the U.S., and is his case going through the slow legal process? And, whatever became of Marisolina, if that story is true? More so, is the death camp still there, and is there more than one?

'Tis too late to edit this. So, I'm off to bed without doing so.