U.S. WARY OF TUMULT IN MEXICO

Officials Hope to Keep Drug Cartels' Violence From Spilling North of the Border

U.S. officials are warily watching Mexico's fierce response to the
escalating drug violence plaguing border cities, fearful that the
bloody gunbattles erupting in places like Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad
Juarez may soon break out on the U.S. side.

Helping Mexico and preventing an outbreak on the U.S. side of the
border will require a multidimensional strategy that involves both
nations, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

"We have to use all the tools at our disposal to work with Mexico to
curb the violence in Mexico before we have gunfights in streets of
American cities," Mr. Cuellar said. "We can't say we'll put up a
fence and think that will curtail violence."

Mr. Cuellar and Michael McCaul, D-Austin, recently ended a three-day
visit to Mexico to study that country's efforts to battle the drug
cartels in advance of a congressional debate on a proposed $1.4
billion aid package to assist in Mexico's war on drugs.

More than 2,500 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last
year. Already in 2008, about 100 people have been killed in brazen
gunfights between federal troops and police and drug trafficking
gangs in Tijuana and just across the Rio Grande in Reynosa and Rio Bravo.

The U.S. side of the border has not been exempt from drug violence.
Cartel leaders in Nuevo Laredo have successfully ordered hits on
rival drug dealers on the U.S. side. And U.S. lawmen have
increasingly become targets.

Border Patrol officials said violent assaults on agents along the
Southwestern border totaled 987 in fiscal 2007, a 31 percent increase
over the year before.

"The American public must understand that this situation is no longer
about illegal immigration or narcotics trafficking," said David V.
Aguilar, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. "It is about criminals and
smuggling organizations fighting our agents with lethal force to take
over a part of American territory so they can conduct criminal activity."

The most recent assault occurred Jan. 19, when a civilian Hummer
carrying drugs ran down a Border Patrol agent near the
Arizona-California line. Border Patrol officials said the killing was
intentional.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the killing of
Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar a "heinous act."

Chief Aguilar said confrontations along the border in the past year
have resulted in attacks on agents with firearms, knives, bats,
firebombs, steel pipes, vehicles and rocks.

"U.S. Border Patrol agents protect and defend America's borders, but
they also protect our border communities from the criminal element's
attempts to turn communities into battlegrounds," he said.

Crackdown in Mexico

On Wednesday, Mexican federal police announced the arrest of Jesus
Navarro Montes, 22, in Sonora state in connection with the killing of
Agent Aguilar.

He was being held in Mexicali on Mexican charges of human smuggling.

Acting on Mexican President Felipe Calderon's vow to hit the cartels
hard, heavily armed federal agents on Tuesday encircled police
stations in Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros to relieve police
officers of duty, disarm them and search for evidence that may link
them to drug traffickers.

A day earlier, Mexican federal authorities announced the capture of
Alfredo Beltran Leyva in Culiacan. He is purportedly a major operator
in the Sinaloa cartel.

Border law enforcement officers, while watchful of the rising
violence on the Mexican side, say that so far it hasn't shifted
directly onto the U.S. side.

"All the sheriffs along the border are extremely concerned about the
escalation in violence in Mexico," said Don Reay, executive director
of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition. "Anytime we see the violence
increase as it has recently, the more worried we get that will cross
directly onto our side."

The violence that broke out in the streets of Reynosa and Rio Bravo,
Mexico, hasn't spread across the border to Hidalgo County, Sheriff
Guadalupe Trevino Jr. said.

Border Patrol officials held a closed-door briefing for Rio Grande
Valley law enforcement officers Thursday on the outbreak of violence
just across the river.

"We tell our guys to be careful out there, to make sure we know where
they are and to make sure they have backup on calls to the river,"
Sheriff Trevino said.

Battle for Entry Points

The sheriff said the cartels are battling over control of entry
points into the U.S., not U.S. turf.

"The cartels know we're better trained, better equipped and not as
corruptible as our Mexican counterparts," Sheriff Trevino said. "If a
gunbattle erupted in Hidalgo County and a police officer or a
civilian was killed, the cartels know the wrath of God would fall on them."

Mr. Reay said the Texas Sheriff's Coalition has joined with border
law enforcement agencies in three other states to form the Southwest
Border Sheriff's Coalition to share intelligence and enforcement methods.

Mexico can't break the power of the cartels alone, Mr. Cuellar said.
As a backstop to the enforcement by Mexican federal authorities, the
U.S. government will add another 3,000 Border Patrol agents this
year, as well as add more electronic surveillance and physical
barriers along the border.

"We can add substantially to Mexico's efforts to bring stability to
the border by working together to take the fight to the cartels," he said.