HomeNewsAnalysisSecond Car Bomb in Mexico Fuels 'Narco-Insurgency' Argument
ANALYSIS

Second Car Bomb in Mexico Fuels 'Narco-Insurgency' Argument

MEXICO / 24 JAN 2011 BY GEOFFREY RAMSEY EN

A car bomb went off on Saturday in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, killing a police officer and wounding three others. This is the second such device to be used by Mexico's increasingly violent drug cartels, further branding the criminal syndicates as “narco-insurgents” and prompting comparisons to the drug violence that rocked Colombia in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

According to Mexican daily El Universal, police forces have linked the attack to the Zetas, who allegedly placed an unidentified corpse in the vehicle and hung several posters in its windows, on which a series of threatening messages to the police were written.  These conditions led police officers to open the trunk of the car in order to attempt a search, which triggered the explosion.

As CNN notes, the attack bears similarity to a bombing that took place in Ciudad Juarez last July, in which a man was dressed in a police uniform and left for dead in an abandoned vehicle.  The presence of the uniformed body lured authorities into opening the car, which caused the bomb to detonate, killing four.

Because that was the first time in the country’s history that a car bomb was used to target police, some analysts believed that the "rules" of the game had changed.  In fact, it may have been last July’s car bombing that led Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to make her controversial comparison between Mexico’s drug cartels and political insurgencies last September. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, Secretary Clinton said "It's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country."

Although the Secretary’s claims drew criticism from the Mexican government and prompted security spokesperson Alejandro Poire to issue a relatively sharp rebuttal, the increase in car bombings and the fact that politicians are increasingly being targeted reinforces the Colombia comparison.

In the 1990s, as guerrillas, paramilitaries and the Colombian security forces all waged war for control of large swaths of the the country, particularly where drug crops proliferated, politicians and other public officials were common targets for attacks from either side.  Assassinations of high-level politicians were common in Colombia, similar to the incident in which Mexican gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantu was killed this past June.

Perhaps as an indicator of the comparison's fit, the Washington Post reported last week that an increasing number of Mexican soldiers and policemen are traveling to Colombia in order to receive counter-narcotics training.

The article cites a recent interview with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, in which he calls for closer security cooperation between the two nations, saying “Mexico has what we had some years ago... very powerful cartels."

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Tags

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

FENTANYL / 9 NOV 2021

A recent seizure of fentanyl in Mexico has shed further light on the capacity of organized crime groups to mass-produce…

EL MENCHO / 2 SEP 2021

As violence has continued to rise in Mexico year after year, criminal groups have adopted an increasingly militarized approach to…

MEXICO / 25 APR 2022

The Mexican government's shuttering of a special criminal investigative unit that worked with US anti-drug agents has added new cracks…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

All Eyes on Ecuador

2 JUN 2023

Our coverage of organized crime in Ecuador continues to be a valuable resource for international and local news outlets. Internationally, Reuters cited our 2022 Homicide Round-Up,…

WORK WITH US

Open Position: Social Media and Engagement Strategist

27 MAY 2023

InSight Crime is looking for a Social Media and Engagement Strategist who will be focused on maintaining and improving InSight Crime’s reputation and interaction with its audiences through publishing activities…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Receives Great Reception

27 MAY 2023

Several of InSight Crime’s most recent articles about Venezuela have been well received by regional media. Our article on Venezuela’s colectivos expanding beyond their political role to control access to…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report Continues

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.