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Assaults on border agents rising fast

An already volatile U.S.-Mexico border climate worsened in the past week as U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector came under gunfire three times, with one shot so close the agent heard the bullet whiz past. With 80 reported attacks since Oct. 1, assaults on Tucson sector agents are on pace to more than double last year's total, when agents reported 118 assaults, sector spokeswoman Andrea Zortman said Monday. The fast-rising number of assaults has officials worried, particularly after a federal agency-wide alert was disseminated last week, warning all federal agents that members of the Gulf Cartel had marked two agents for kidnapping and execution. Officials immediately downplayed that threat as uncorroborated after the internal FBI memo disclosing it was leaked to the press. The alert was rescinded by Monday, said Art Werge, FBI spokesman for the El Paso field office. But what can't be downplayed is the number of incidents of gunfire in Sonora and now in Southern Arizona. The three shootings come as a drug war creeping across northern Mexico entered Sonora, where members of the Juárez Cartel unloaded a barrage of automatic weapon fire and hand grenades on southern Sonora police in Ciudad Obregon and Navojoa late Friday. The shooters disappeared into Sinaloa, the Sonora Attorney General's Office said. Judging by the lack of casualties despite more than 300 rounds fired, the shootings likely were a show of force by the Juárez Cartel rather than a direct attack, said Phil Jordan, former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center and a former DEA agent. The shootings on Border Patrol agents came in quick succession after Wednesday and may be a further move by the Juárez Cartel to destabilize the region, Jordan said. The latest attack occurred just after midnight Sunday when an agent two miles east of Douglas heard four gunshots coming from Mexico and took cover. A responding team found somebody had shot a remote video surveillance system. Four bullet holes were found in the plastic sheeting covering the solar panels of the system.

Friday night, near the Douglas International Airport, an agent reported hearing three gunshots also coming from Mexico and striking the truck he was in. The truck sustained bullet holes in a rear tire and in the front bumper. Last Wednesday, an agent reported seeing a muzzle flash and heard a bullet as it whizzed by, the agency reported. The incident occurred near the border wall by the Douglas airport, where agents reported seeing a group of people watching for Border Patrol activity. The shootings were among nine incidents in which Arizona agents were shot at this fiscal year. The other assaults include a variety of incidents. In several cases, like one Oct. 7, a smuggler tried to ram three agent vehicles before escaping near Tres Bellotas Ranch and Arivaca roads. The day before that, a man was arrested after he tried to ram a Border Patrol helicopter north of Sasabe, a town west of Nogales. The shootings were reported to the FBI, said FBI Phoenix office spokeswoman Deborah McCarley. She said the agency is not investigating the shootings. The shootings could have been a play by the Juárez Cartel to throw heat on the Gulf Cartel - an old drug-gang tactic used to cast attention on one gang instead of another, Jordan said. Last week, an internal FBI memo warned two specific FBI agents could be kidnapped by an elite group of Mexican army deserters called the Zetas who carry U.S. visas and serve as the paramilitary arm for the Gulf Cartel. News reports stated the memo threatened Zetas may enter the country, seize the agents and execute them in Mexico. That memo prompted a warning to all federal agencies, including the Border Patrol. Even though it turned out to be untrue, it still concerns some. "Any time information like that is received, it's a concern," Zortman said. At this rate, the assaults on agents this year could match an overall high of 341 in fiscal year 1999. So far, though, only one agent was assaulted seriously enough to merit hospital attention, Zortman said. In that incident, two weeks ago, the agent's leg was pinned between his truck and a car that lurched forward after it was stopped.