ATTACK ON US AGENTS WON'T SLOW DRUG WAR, EXPERTS SAY

The U.S. will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mexico in
its fight against drug cartels in spite of the fatal attack Tuesday in
Mexico in which one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was
killed and another from El Paso was wounded, officials and experts
said Wednesday.

Some, like University of Texas at El Paso professor Howard Campbell,
also said it was no surprise the agents were attacked, and admitted he
had been surprised it had not happened before.

"The U.S. and Mexico are deeply intertwined in politics, in the
economy and now in the drug war," said Campbell, who has written
several books on the Mexican cartels.

ICE special agent Jaime Zapata, of Laredo, Texas, was killed Tuesday
in Mexico while he and agent Victor Avila of El Paso were driving
between Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, and Mexico City. Avila was shot twice
in the leg. He is back in the U.S.

Both agents were assigned to ICE's attache office in Mexico
City.

ICE has 63 offices in 44 countries around the world with more than 380
government and contract personnel committed to ICE's international
operations. In Mexico, ICE has agents in five cities: Mexico City,
Monterrey, Hermosillo, Tijuana and Mexico City.

Avila and Zapata were assigned to the Mexico City office.

Based on information released within the past 24 hours, several
experts and former federal officials said the shooting appears to be a
targeted hit on a U.S. agent done by the Zetas. The Zetas control all
the major drug-smuggling corridors in the region where the agents were
shot.

Phil Jordan, former director of the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center
in El Paso, said there might be a connection between the shooting and
the U.S. involvement in Mexico. He previously criticized the comments
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made while at the
University of Texas at El Paso in January.

He said her comments bordered on challenging the Mexican drug
cartels.

"I'm sure she didn't mean it that way, but you never want to challenge
people who are borderline psychotic," Jordan said. "The comments she
made were ill-advised. We're up to the challenge, but we should never
do anything to instigate a provocation."

During the January visit, Napolitano warned the cartels.

"Don't even think about bringing your violence and tactics across this
border," she said. "You will be met by an overwhelming response. And
we're going to continue to work with our partners in Mexico to
dismantle and defeat you."

Napolitano's words speak to the extent of the U.S.' involvement in
Mexico, experts said.

Since 2009, when President Barack Obama took over, Mexico has been a
priority for Congress. Fourteen congressional hearings on Mexico have
been held and the U.S. has approved spending $1.4 billion to help
Mexico defeat the cartels and change its criminal justice system.

Mexico is a priority because Congress is keenly aware that Mexican
cartels operate through out the U.S., and not just along the border.

To reinforce the United States' position on Mexico, Obama has met with
Mexican President Felipe Calderon several times, and several
Cabinet-level officials have traveled to Mexico. Among those who went
a year ago were U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Director of National Intelligence
Dennis Blair, Drug Enforcement Administration Acting Administrator
Michele M. Leonhart and Napolitano.

The meetings were part of the U.S.' desire to continue with the next
phase of Merida Initiative, which is expected to provide Mexico with
$10 billion over the next three years.

Because of this investment, the U.S. will not severely change its
objectives in Mexico, said Miguel Levario, a Texas Tech University
professor who specializes in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Levario said the repercussions of Tuesday's tragic event will be felt
at the political level.

"In regards to the social consequences, like the Arizona rancher who
was killed last year, it will be used as political and social fodder
for anti-immigration advocates and xenophobes," Levario said. "They
have yet to identify the killer, but a simple yet dangerous assumption
that it was a drug dealer or unauthorized immigrant is enough to rally
the radical right-wingers and their political allies in the U.S. Congress."

Levario said many will also call Tuesday's act "spillover
violence."

"The disconnect between American diplomacy towards Mexico and public
outcry stems in part from the fact that our relationship with Mexico
hasn't really changed despite the tens of thousands of Mexicans and
some American citizens that have died since 2006 as result of this
drug war," he said. "So why would one agent's death change anything?
Think about it. Where was the administration's reaction to the U.S.
teenagers killed last week?"

Two El Paso high-school students were shot and killed in Juarez two
weeks ago when they were at a used-car dealership.

According to a U.S. diplomatic cable disclosed by WikiLeaks, U.S.
officials have voiced concerns about attacks from drug cartels. The
document states that since 2007, drug cartels had killed 61 Mexican
informants who had worked with the DEA and FBI.

"More than 60 of Mexico's best law enforcement officers in whom we
have placed our trust and with whom we have collaborated on sensitive
investigations, shared intelligence, and in many cases trained and
vetted have been murdered by the cartels," the document said.

The violence toward U.S. agents in Mexico is not new.

Two U.S. federal agents were nearly executed by drug kingpin Osiel
Cardenas and his gang in 1999. And DEA Special Agent Joe DuBois and
FBI Special Agent Daniel Fuentes were stopped by Cardenas' men in
Matamoros, and were held at gunpoint until Cardenas decided what to do
with them.

Cardenas spared their lives and sent them away. The two agents were
assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey.

The highest-profile attack on a U.S. law enforcement agent in Mexico
occurred in 1985 when the DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was
kidnapped, tortured and killed by narcotics traffickers in
Guadalajara.

Camarena's killing, with the apparent complicity of corrupt Mexican
officials, created a major strain in U.S.-Mexico relations and
prompted a DEA investigation.

Until now, the aggressive American response to Camarena's murder has
often been cited to explain why Mexican drug cartels have not targeted
U.S. authorities operating in the country, knowing they would provoke
the wrath of the U.S. government.