OFFICERS OUTGUNNED ON U.S. BORDER

Violence along the U.S.-Mexico border is undergoing what U.S.
law-enforcement authorities call "an unprecedented surge," some of it
fueled by weapons and ammunition purchased or stolen in the United States.

Federal, state and local law-enforcement officials from Texas to
California, concerned about the impact of illegally imported weapons
into Mexico, say they already are outmanned and outgunned by ruthless
gangs that collect millions of dollars in profits by smuggling aliens
and drugs into this country.

"These gangs have the weapons and the will to protect their lucrative
cargoes," said Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., the sheriff of Zapata County,
Texas, who founded and served as the first president of the Texas
Border Sheriff's Coalition. "With automatic weapons, grenades and
grenade launchers, they pose a significant danger."

Last month, Mexican military officials in Matamoros, just south of
Brownsville, Texas, stopped a tractor-trailer containing weapons and
ammunition, along with a pickup truck fitted with armor and bulletproof glass.

The weapons included 18 M-16 assault rifles, one equipped with an
M-203 40mm grenade launcher. Also seized were several M-4 carbines,
17 handguns of various calibers, 200 magazines for different weapons,
8,000 rounds of ammunition, assault vests and other military accessories.

While Mexican authorities have not determined the source of the
weapons, the truck was registered in Texas and authorities think the
weapons were being smuggled across the border from the United States.
U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement authorities have long described
Matamoros as a key shipping center for drugs, weapons and illegal aliens.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also ended a 20-month
investigation last month into a Mexican drug-trafficking organization
and its U.S.-based distribution cells, which resulted in the arrest
of 400 persons nationwide and the seizure of $45 million in cash and
100 weapons.

Operation Imperial Emperor targeted the Victor Emilio
Cazares-Gastellum drug cartel, which supplied multiton quantities of
cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana monthly to distribution cells
throughout the United States.

A task force led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
also seized two completed improvised explosive devices, materials for
making 33 more, 300 primers, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, five
grenades, nine pipes with end caps, 26 grenade triggers, 31 grenade
spoons, 40 grenade pins, 19 black powder casings, a silencer and cash
during raids in Laredo, Texas, last month.

"Keeping explosives and other high-powered weaponry out of the hands
of violent criminal organizations is a central focus of the new
Border Enforcement Security Task Force in Laredo," said Homeland
Security Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers, who heads ICE. "ICE is
working day and night with its task force partners to stem the tide
of violence that has been ravaging border communities in south Texas."

Task force members in Laredo have seized more than three dozen
assault rifles bound for Mexico in the past year, along with kits to
modify them for automatic fire. In Arizona, more than two dozen
assault weapons have been seized in the past year.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 military troops to the
region after taking office in December. The troops have focused, in
part, on the border towns of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, where
hundreds of killings have been attributed to brutal turf battles
between rival gangs.

Numerous Mexican police officers have been killed by drug gangs armed
with automatic weapons, explosives and bazookas.

In a recent report, ICE noted that border gangs were becoming
increasingly ruthless -- targeting rivals, along with federal, state
and local police, including the U.S. Border Patrol agents, who have
faced an increase in assaults as the agency seeks to bring
operational control to the border.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which
represents all 11,000 of the agency's non-supervisory agents, said
violence by gangs battling to control smuggling routes into this
country has increased dramatically and is spilling into some U.S. communities.

Mr. Bonner said that while much of the violence is directed at rival
gang members, there is an "inevitable spillover that touches innocent
civilians and law-enforcement officials on both sides of the border."

He said assaults against Border Patrol agents have more than doubled
over the past two years, mainly by drug cartels "far more inclined to
utilize violence as a means of achieving their goal of successfully
smuggling contraband and people."