MCALLEN, Texas – While several cities just south of the Texas border have been living in a state of siege following a fierce cartel war, Tamaulipas government officials have begun a consistent effort to minimize the brutality of the fighting and the lawlessness throughout the state.
Most recently, the Tamaulipas Attorney General, Ismael Quintanilla, spoke on a Mexican radio show claiming that there was not a state of alert throughout the area and that the shooting was due to an increase in operations by state police and the military in the area, not mentioning anything about the ongoing cartel violence.
Quintanilla’s comments contradict a security alert issued by the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros that warned residents about fierce firefights between warring cartel factions that used large convoys of vehicles with codenames painted on their doors such as M3, XX, C7 and others.
In that radio interview, Quintanilla claimed that the population had not been affected by the shootouts because the firefights took place along the highways. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, residents of the Mexican border cities of Reynosa, Matamoros, Valle Hermoso, and Rio Bravo have lived in a state of fear as two warring factions of the Gulf Cartel continue their bloody struggle.
While citizen reports claim the body count has risen to several dozen, Tamaulipas officials have only confirmed 14 gunmen dead, 13 of which were killed by authorities and one gunman that was killed by rivals and left behind. Officials also confirmed a wounded police officer. The information provided to Breitbart Texas by officials also makes no mention of the fighting between cartel members or the casualties from those encounters.
Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter and on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.