Around midnight on February 2 Manuel Farfan Carriola was slain on his way home from work. His four bodyguards were also killed, and several police officers were wounded in a gunfight with the assailants. Early blame for the murder of Carriola, a retired general and recently appointed police chief of Nuevo Laredo, is going to the Zetas drug syndicate. This is the second police chief of Nuevo Laredo to be murdered in six years.
STRATFOR just released a report on the murder, noting that the Zetas are very skilled at carrying out car-as-cage style attacks. The Zetas work in league with corrupt police to find out details of routes between an officials house and office, and they are proficient at blocking intersections by riding in taxicabs to track a convoy until it reaches the designated “kill zone” for the ambush.
Washington’s radar right may be too ablaze for Corriola’s murder to show up right now, but it feeds disquiet in DF about the safety of high-ranking public officials.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
