The Mexican army has ordered three junior officers and 10 soldiers to stand trial on drug trafficking and organized crime charges after they were allegedly caught with more than a tonne of methamphetamines and 30kg of cocaine.
The soldiers were arrested last week with drugs at a military checkpoint south of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.
They are being charged within the military justice system.
The Mexican Defense Department said in a statement it would “in no way tolerate” such acts.
CORRUPTION
Corruption is widespread among Mexican police, and some experts worry it could spread to the tens of thousands of soldiers assigned to fight drug traffickers across the country.
In the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, police on Friday found the dismembered body of a man near the city’s main coastal boulevard.
A police statement said a car was set afire beside the body, and two handwritten signs were also found nearby.
“Here is your garbage,” read one.
Such signs are frequently left by drug gangs to threaten rivals and authorities.
MUTILATED REMAINS
Outside Acapulco, on the toll road to Mexico City, a man’s bound, mutilated body was found near a burned-out car. The unknown victim had been shot in the face and head, and his ear was severed, according to police in Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located.
Another body that had been cut in pieces was found in three plastic bags dumped on a street in a residential area of Acapulco, police said.
ATTACKS
Near the city’s colonial San Diego Fort, meanwhile, unidentified assailants attacked three homes with gasoline bombs, gunshots and a grenade that failed to explode.
No injuries were reported in those attacks.
In the northern state of Coahuila, across from Texas, a state trooper, a female passer-by and five gunmen were killed during a series of shootouts between police and presumed cartel henchmen, authorities said.
Gunmen in three sport utility vehicles attacked police in state capital Saltillo on Friday morning, leading to a chase and gunfight that killed two attackers and injured four officers, the Coahuila state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Minutes later, gunmen riding in SUVs ambushed and killed a state police officer in nearby Ramos Arizpe.
CAUGHT IN CROSSFIRE
An hour later in Saltillo, three gunmen and a woman who was caught in the crossfire died in another shootout between police and suspected traffickers.
Prosecutors didn’t say whether the three incidents were related.
Saltillo, a city of about 750,000 people near the industrial hub of Monterrey, and the surrounding area had so far largely avoided the worst of a wave of violence in northeastern Mexico arising from a turf fight between the Gulf drug cartel and its former hit men, the Zetas.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term