GRAPHIC: Cartel Shootouts Rain Terror in Mexican Border City — Again

Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas and Coahuila to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Reynosa. 

REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — Once again terror took hold of this border city as cartel gunmen and Mexican authorities engaged in fierce gun-battles during apparent attempts to capture the leadership of the Gulf Cartel.

The firefights froze this city on Friday afternoon when Mexican authorities set out an operation to capture the leader of the Gulf Cartel in this city, Juan Manuel “Comandante Toro” Loisa Salinas. The operation began shortly after 11 a.m. in the Bugambilias neighborhood in south central part of the city.

Mexican soldiers began to carry out a series of raids in various homes in the Bugambilias neighborhood in an effort to capture top leaders within the Gulf Cartel.

The gun battles began when Mexican soldiers and Federal Police officers spotted a convoy of gunmen and tried to apprehend them. The move resulted a rolling shootout as the gunmen tried to elude capture while firing a the soldiers. The rolling gun battle soon moved to the city’s main roadway called Boulevard Hidalgo and on Viaducto highway where as more gunmen arrived, the shootouts began to spread into multiple nearby neighborhoods. 

Cartel gunmen began to carjack unsuspecting motorists as well as passenger busses and using the vehicles to block of mulitple avenues in an attempt to slow down the arrival of convoys of soldiers and federal police officers. Gunmen also began to stack up piles of tires before setting them on fire. The move was done in order to have the smoke cloud the visibility of military snipers who were riding on helicopters that provide aerial support for the troops on the ground.

The firefight comes just days after authorities tried to capture Loisa. The move set off a large gun battled that left 9 cartel gunmen dead, Breitbart Texas previously reported. Just days after that fierce gun battle cartel gunmen shot three innocent bystanders during another gun battle in the border city of Matamoros. Despite there having been 25 gun battles since the start of the year, Tamaulipas officials continue to praise the “improving security conditions” in the state. Breitbart Texas previously reported when public officials claimed the border area was safe while at the same time confirming at the time that there had been 20 gun battles in 11 weeks. In the days after authorities made that claim, there have been five other shootouts.

In addition to the fighting with authorities, commanders within the Gulf Cartel have also been fighting each other in an apparent dispute for control of the criminal group. Just one day before the most recent gun battles, a cartel assassin killed the man known as Commander Manitas or “little hands.”  The murder took place at the parking lot of a local shopping center where the cartel leader had been spending time with his family.

The assassin walked up to Manitas and shot him point blank as the  man sat inside his SUV. Sources consulted by Breitbart Texas confirm that Manitas was a close ally of Comandante Cleofas.

The current leader of the Gulf Cartel appears to have been at odds with his number two Cleofas Alberto “Wero Cleofas” Martinez. Mexican authorities recently caught Martinez without any violence at a racetrack in Mexico City where the fearsome capo had travelled to see a soccer game, Breitbart Texas  previously reported.