GUARD-OUTLAW STANDOFF ON BORDER RATTLES TROOPS

DEL RIO -- A recent standoff between National Guardsmen and heavily armed
outlaws along the Mexican border has rattled some troops and raised
questions about the rules of engagement for soldiers who were sent to the
border in what was supposed to be a backup role.

Six to eight gunmen - possibly heading for Mexico with drug money -
approached a group of Tennessee National Guard troops at an overnight
observation post Jan. 3 on the U.S. side of the Arizona-Mexico border. No
one fired a shot, and the confrontation ended when American troops
retreated to contact the Border Patrol. The gunmen then fled into Mexico.

But the incident made some National Guard commanders nervous enough to move
up training dates for handling hostage situations. And some lawmakers have
questioned why the rules prohibit soldiers from opening fire unless they
are fired upon.

"Why would this be allowed to happen?" Republican Arizona state Rep. Warde
Nichols said. "Why do we have National Guard running from illegals on the
border?"

Nichols said until the rules of engagement are changed, the troops are
little more than "window dressing ... to say we are doing something about
border security."

"We want to untie their hands," he added. "We want to put them in a primary
role."

The standoff was the first known armed encounter between National Guard
troops and civilians since President Bush ordered about 6,000 soldiers to
the border in May to support the Border Patrol and local law enforcement.
The guard was supposed to be the "eyes and ears" for other agencies and was
not given authority to arrest or detain illegal immigrants.

The men who confronted the soldiers were armed with automatic weapons and
wearing ballistic vests when they saw the soldiers, split into two groups
and appeared to be trying to surround them, authorities said. Before the
Guardsmen retreated, one gunman came within 35 feet of the soldiers,
according to a National Guard report. The outlaws' nationality was unclear,
investigators said.

Republican Arizona state Rep. Jerry Weiers said the rules of engagement put
soldiers in a tough position.

"My real, true, honest concern here is that we don't return fire until we
have been fired upon, and by then we have probably lost a life," Weiers said.

Arizona's Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a Republican whose
prosecution of illegal immigrants has drawn national attention, called the
incident "a deep embarrassment" that highlights growing dangers from
well-armed drug traffickers and human smugglers along the border.

Texas soldiers will undergo additional training on what to do if they are
separated from their teams or taken hostage or kidnapped.

"It mainly encompasses how to treat your captors, what to think about when
you are in that position and what to do when you are being rescued," Staff
Sgt. Henry Aguirre said as he watched three soldiers on an overnight shift
survey the darkened Rio Grande just outside Del Rio.

Guard officials had planned to run the training later this year, Aguirre
said, but the standoff "increased the urgency."

Several soldiers said the Arizona confrontation worried them.

"I didn't think they were going to get that bold," said Sgt. Samuel Perez
of Savannah, Ga. "It's kind of been chilling that somebody is going to be
that crazy."

First Lt. Wayne Lee, a spokesman for the New Mexico National Guard, said
soldiers "are not supposed to get into a firefight. It's not the Sunni
Triangle."

Because the units are under separate control, there's no uniformity on how
the soldiers are armed.

National Guard officials said the Tennessee soldiers did have loaded
weapons on Jan. 3 and even readied their guns to fire. But Arizona
officials have declined to describe whether its troops always keep their
guns loaded or how they are armed, other than to say they have ammunition,
bulletproof vests and Kevlar helmets.

But other border states have varying policies.

In New Mexico, soldiers working along the sparsely populated border carry
unloaded M-16 rifles each soldier carries a separate loaded clip and
don't always wear bulletproof vests. On a recent afternoon near Columbus,
N.M., several soldiers had their vests on the tailgate of a military truck.

In Texas, where violence in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, has occasionally spilled
into Larerdo, Texas, the Guard troops can keep their M-16s or 9MM Barrettas
loaded and they were bulletproof vests.

California authorities also wouldn't disclose the details of their weapons.

"We have weapons and we have ammunition and we have the training to use
(them)," said Master Sgt. Michael Drake, a Guard spokesman in California,
said. "We are armed for our own protection."

T.J. Bonner, president of the Border Patrol agents' union, said the
soldiers sent to bolster his agents are unnecessarily at risk.

"It's not like some picnic down there," Bonner said. "Anyone down there
enforcing the laws is going to be caught up in the violence."

Bonner said he worried that the soldiers apparently can only defend
themselves "once the bullets start flying."

"It's a recipe for disaster," Bonner said.