Light weapons and passing confrontations no longer represent the reality of Mexican cartels. According to a report by The New York Timespublished on Monday (1st), criminal groups operating in Mexico are using drones, terrestrial mines, grenades propelled by rockets and makeshift shielded vehicles in battles that occur a few kilometers from the United States border.
The escalation of violence occurs in states such as Michoacán, where civilians live under constant risk of air and explosive bombing hidden on roads and plantations.
According to information from Times, Most of the heavy weapons come from the United States. Mexican authorities estimate that half a million firearms are smuggled each year for the neighboring country. In addition, criminals make makeshift pumps with pipes, plastic bottles and even extinguishers, as well as adapt online drones to launch toxic projectiles and chemicals.
Cartels, under pressure from the Mexican government and US security operations, are becoming paramilitary forces, the publication says. Not only do they compete against the state, but also to bloody disputes by strategic territories.
In Michoacán, the struggle for the control of drug production and trafficking routes is being fought by factions such as the Knights Templar, La Familia Michoacana and, above all, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, considered the best armed in the country. According to TimesThe advance of this militarization has already resulted in the destruction of military-throw military helicopters and hundreds of mines on civilians used by civilians. In the last two years, at least 2,000 people have been displaced from their homes in this region alone.
In February, about a month after President Donald Trump’s government classifies several Mexican cartels such as terrorist organizations, including the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, internal documents from the Texas, revealed that criminal leaders of these cartels had authorized the use of Kamikaze drones equipped with explosives against US border patrol agents, which confirms that cartels do not only have to have Fire power comparable to that of state military forces, as well as plan to employ typical asymmetrical war tactics against the United States.
