750-PLUS ARRESTED: ROUNDUP TARGETS SINALOA CARTEL

A Mexican drug group known as the Sinaloa cartel has been taking some
heavy casualties -- north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Multiple U.S.
law-enforcement agencies have been participating in a 21-month
initiative called Operation Xcellerator; its results were announced
Wednesday in Washington.

Officials said more than 750 people were arrested nationally,
including some in El Paso. Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a statement, "We
successfully concluded the largest and hardest-hitting operation to
ever target the very violent and dangerously powerful Sinaloa drug cartel.

"From Washington to Maine, we have disrupted this cartel's domestic
operations -- arresting U.S. cell heads and stripping them of more
than $59 million in cash -- and seriously impacted their Canadian
drug operations as well."

That's really good news for those Americans concerned about the
effect of drug-cartel violence within our borders. According to the
Justice Department's 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment, cartel
"cells" have spread out across the country, have formed alliances
with street gangs and now constitute the greatest organized-crime
threat to the United States.

So some measure of comfort can be derived from this crippling of
Sinaloa cartel activities in the United States. Just how much
crippling was accomplished remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, violence continues unabated across the border. More police
and soldiers will be sent to embattled Juarez, but whether they will
do any good is open to question. So far, armed intervention has had
no positive effect and the violence continues and increases.

However, it's hoped that efforts such as Operation Xcellerator will
help keep the Mexican violence from spilling over the border in a big way.