The Bazaar of Violence, Open for Business in Mexico

If we view the recent surge in violence down Mexico way through the GlobalGuerrillas lens, we find a bazaar of violence that is open for business. Business may be slow, at the moment, but like most network effects, the ramp-up rate can be amazingly fast...

From a Stratfor Mexico Security Memo from January 14th:

...Another hot spot this week was Cancun, in Quintana Roo state, where police exchanged gunfire with armed suspects in broad daylight near a soccer stadium and a supermarket. The incident reportedly began when gunmen attempting bring a kidnap victim into a safe house were intercepted by police, who opened fire on the suspects. Two people were killed and five wounded in the firefight, in which the suspects used assault rifles and fragmentation grenades.

Several of the suspects reportedly fled the house during the encounter, but not before apparently booby-trapping a body inside. Police reported finding one body inside the house holding a grenade whose pin had been pulled. Such tactics are not common in Mexico, though they reinforce concerns that Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations will continue to shift tactics as they face increasing pressure from authorities. Indeed, U.S. counternarcotics sources say that Mexican drug cartels are insufficiently armed to combat Mexican military forces in head-to-head battles but have an advantage in conducting a guerrilla insurgency...

And that is just a highlight from a report that includes data on a counternarcotics convoy that was ambushed in Michoacan state, the arrest of airport officials implicated in drug smuggling and a story on how the police in Playas de Rosarito were banned from carrying their firearms while an investigation went forward to their possible ties to organized crime.

State mechanisms infiltrated by armed non-state actors. A spread of tactics to now including IED's wired to corpses (how long before we move up to house-staged IEDs?). Lot's of money to fund the non-state actors. If the GlobalGuerrillas meme gets firmly implanted in Mexico, look for some intense blowback north of the Rio Grande.