Source: Daily Telegraph
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Electronic Telegraph

Cartel leaders set snipers to work in border 'war'
By John Hiscock

AMERICAN Border Patrol agents have become targets of snipers working for
drug smugglers trying to take control of the border with Mexico.

A fivemile strip of frontier near San Diego in California has become so
dangerous that a speciallytrained squad of border patrol sentries armed
with assault rifles has been drafted in to combat the snipers, who have
fired at agents seven times in the past two months.

The agents believe that Mexican drug cartel leaders have issued
instructions to kill any law enforcement officers impeding drug smuggling
operations. Their fears have been heightened by a bulletin from the
Immigration and Naturalisation Service that said two drug cartel leaders in
the Mexican border city of Tijuana had "reportedly contracted with local
gangs on both sides of the border to kill federal law enforcement
personnel", preferably on American soil.

In addition, officers recently received reports that cartel henchmen have
put a price on their heads by offering to pay £7,000 for the home address
of any United States federal agent.

Dianne Feinstein, a Californian senator, says that border patrol agents,
whose job until recently was to arrest mainly frightened and unarmed
Mexicans trying to cross the frontier at night, are now in the front line
of a vicious drug war. "This is a border on alert, a border where anything
could happen," she said. "These cartels are moving drugs across the border
and are operating with impunity and that adds an increased risk to the
lives of border patrol agents. This is a different border than it was two
years ago."

In addition to being the most popular spot for illegal aliens attempting
to cross, the border around San Diego is now the main gateway for cocaine
and heroin bound for the US.

Since the introduction of Operation Gatekeeper, President Clinton's 1994
antiillegal alien initiative that poured more money and agents into the
San Diego area, the drug smugglers have found themselves increasingly
caught up in the patrols' swoops on illegal bordercrossers. "We've made it
increasingly difficult for drug traffic," said John Williams, the chief of
San Diego's 2,000strong border patrol sector. "We're making it tough on
crime and that certainly has some bearing on their reaction. The escalation
of violence is of grave concern to me and my agents."

Members of the elite special protection unit carry M16 assault rifles,
with a range of more than a mile, while all agents are now being issued
with semiautomatic pistols and shotguns.

© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997