Drone bombing of police building not a ‘declaration of war’ from cartels, expert says

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Thursday’s brazen drone bombing of a police building in Tijuana, Mexico, likely was meant as a warning and not a declaration of war from a criminal organization, a private security expert says.

The pre-dawn attack on the Playas Tijuana police station consisted of homemade bombs that damaged three civilian vehicles and a squad car. No police officers or civilians were injured.

Baja California Attorney General on Thursday said the attack was a response to “the strong results” from state officials in arresting the leaders of criminal organizations and disrupting their activities.

She said state authorities will not be deterred in continuing to investigate criminal activity.

The bombing in that Mexican city just across the border from San Diego County comes a few days after the Department of Homeland Security suggested Mexican drug cartels are offering bounties for the killing of U.S. federal agents.

Scott Stewart, vice president of intelligence at TorchStone Global, a private security firm with offices in five American cities and in London, said he doubts the Tijuana attack is a sign the cartels are ready to go to war with the Mexican government, nor that they’re ready to directly engage U.S. agents.

“In Mexico, it’s not difficult to get your hands on commercial dynamite and such. They could have used blasting gel or high explosives if they really wanted to do damage,” Stewart told Border Report on Friday. “I see this as being more of a (message), a dedicated attack not to kill people or cause real damage.”

However, that they would use a drone to drop bombs so close to the U.S. border will feed into the narrative that drug cartels are terrorists, he said.

“It allows (the Trump administration) to again justify their classification of cartels as terrorist groups. They’ll say, ‘See, we told you these guys are terrorists,’” Stewart said.

What’s certain is that transnational criminal organizations in Mexico are increasingly using drones to attack enemies, authorities and public places in villages in states like Michoacan that refuse to allow criminals to operate there.

Stewart opined that any cartel leader who green-lights an attack on U.S. agents would be foolish.

“That would be declaring war, and I don’t think they want the U.S. government to focus on them heavily. It’s bad for business to bring that much attention on yourself,” he said. “I don’t see them going after American agents in any significant way. They aren’t stupid, they remember what happened when they kidnapped and tortured Kiki Camarena. They don’t want that kind of pressure on their organizations again.”

Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was abducted, tortured, and killed in Mexico in 1985 by reputed drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero. The killing prompted the Reagan administration to put pressure on Mexico to arrest the drug lord and his associates and to clamp down on drug activity.

Caro Quintero was extradited from Mexico to the U.S. earlier this year, 40 years after Camarena's murder.