Concerns in Juárez climb as bombing threat grows - El Paso Times
The threat of more deadly car bombings like the one earlier this month has forced Juárez authorities to take measures to protect police stations, and authorities reported finding more explosives in Chihuahua on Wednesday.
The car bombing that killed three people apparently was ordered because law-enforcement agencies are perceived to be siding with either the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels, which have unleashed a wave of violence in the city that has claimed the lives of nearly 6,000 people since 2008.
The July 15 bombing killed a Mexican federal police officer and a paramedic responding to a call about a wounded police officer laying on a sidewalk. The police officer, who also was killed, was a decoy who lured agents to the scene before the blast.
The bomb, made from about 22 pounds of Tovex, a water gel explosive commonly used as a replacement for dynamite in mining, was detonated by remote control. Authorities on Wed nesday found 55 pounds of the explosive in the mountains between Chihuahua and Sonora states following a shootout with gunmen.
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A report on IEDs in Colombia published last December in The Journal of ERW and Mine Action stated that IEDs have been used in a variety of forms besides vehicles, including donkey-drawn carts, bicycles and ambulances. Bombs have also been set in buildings as booby traps for police.
The report stated members of terrorist groups such as ETA from Spain and the Irish Republican Army visited Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s to train cartels, guerrillas and paramilitary groups how to make bombs.
“The car bombing indicates how extreme the conflict between the Juárez cartel and their adversaries has become,” said Howard Campbell, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who studies drug trafficking.
“The Juárez cartel believes — and all evidence seems to indicate — that federal forces have mainly targeted their organization in Juárez, not the Chapo Guzman cartel,” Campbell said. “Most Juárez residents and the majority of analysts in the U.S. and Mexico feel that the Chapo Guzman cartel has strong support within certain sectors of federal law enforcement and the military in Mexico.”
On July 18, graffiti in Juárez told the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration they had 15 days to go after Mexican federal police supporting the Sinaloa cartel or there will be another car bombing.
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