Shootouts echoing through the streets. Masked gunmen dragging people from homes. Mutilated bodies dumped on the sidewalks. For almost a year, the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa has been under siege, as warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations, have waged a brutal internal conflict.
Mexican authorities have cracked down on the syndicate, rounding up more than 1,500 alleged cartel operatives in the state since October, according to Mexico’s security chief. But they have failed to stop the blood bath there or anywhere else in Mexico, where cartels have long been a dominant force.
For years, President Trump has been threatening to get the U.S. military involved in this fight. The administration has already designated the Sinaloa Cartel a foreign terrorist organization, along with other Mexican cartels. The C.I.A. has been conducting covert drone flights over Mexico to identify fentanyl labs and other cartel targets.
Today, the possibility of direct, unilateral military strikes against cartels on Mexican soil looks closer than ever.
Mr. Trump has reportedly signed a directive authorizing the use of military force against the cartels. The Pentagon has reportedly been looking at such plans and has deployed thousands of additional troops to waters around Latin America and the Caribbean.
Officials in Mexico City, who had claimed they were nearing a major security agreement with Washington, were apparently blindsided by the news. “We will never, ever allow the U.S. Army or any other institution of the United States to set foot in Mexican territory ever,” President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said on Aug. 11.
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The post The Folly of Trump’s Cartel-Bombing Fantasy appeared first on New York Times.
