Valle Hermoso shaken by violence amid apparent cartel turf battle

VALLE HERMOSO, Tamps., Mexico — A night of intense fighting here between heavily armed men that left an undetermined number of dead and wounded gave way Thursday to a rush of activity by residents, according to witnesses.

Valle Hermoso, a community of some 60,000 people about 25 miles south of Los Indios Free Trade Bridge, was left shaken by the violence Wednesday night that residents attributed to two warring drug cartels.

Residents reported gun battles with automatic weapons and explosions.

Thursday brought reports of shot-up buildings and police cars, burned-out SUVs, and bodies lying in the streets. One person claimed several bodies were strung up from traffic sign poles.

People took advantage of the relative calm of the daylight hours on Thursday to stock up on essentials as another night of possible violence loomed, according to residents who would not give their names for fear of reprisal.

“It’s just like before a hurricane. People are out there buying as many groceries as they can,” one resident said. “It’s like the calm before the storm.”

Mexican military forces that were expected sometime early Thursday had not arrived by late afternoon.

Authorities — municipal leaders, police, firefighters and ambulance personnel — were nowhere to be found as they joined other residents in hunkering down.

Many people did not even make it home Wednesday night when the confrontation broke out, instead seeking refuge in stores, with friends and in neighbors’ homes. A cinema opened its doors to shelter people fleeing the violence.

Even Valle Hermoso’s police station was attacked Wednesday night, witnesses said. After the building was shot up with assault rifles, the city’s police force disappeared as fighting raged nearby.

One Internet report stated that a small military force stationed in the city also retreated when the fighting began.

Residents said the turf battle involved two factions vying for control of the city. Only one of the factions was identified — Los Zetas, residents reported.

A paramilitary group founded by former Mexican special forces officers, the Zetas once served as the Gulf Cartel’s enforcement arm but has since developed into a major drug trafficking organization in its own right.

While each organization continues to operate largely independently, together they decide matters ranging from payments owed to top leaders and the price of drugs on the open market. However, U.S. law enforcement officials say members of the alliance may now be battling each other for control of smuggling routes through northern Tamaulipas and the Rio Grande Valley.

According to one resident, Valle Hermoso began getting warnings of the impending violence on Feb. 18, when parents pulled their children from school.

A subsequent warning on Tuesday went unheeded.

On Wednesday, the mayhem broke out.

Residents believe the cartels have threatened local media, because no reports of the violence have appeared on northern Tamaulipas TV stations or in Valle Hermoso’s newspapers.

Without reliable news reports, civilians are having to rely on e-mail, blogs and phone reports to find out what’s happening.

One e-mail to multiple undisclosed recipients circulating on Thursday afternoon was a warning to residents to expect another battle to erupt Thursday night once Mexican marines and other military arrived to try to reclaim the city from the victorious faction of Wednesday night’s fighting.

Valle Hermoso school officials have suspended classes until Monday at the earliest.

Residents of this normally tranquil city were stunned by the eruption of violence.

“We wouldn’t believe it unless we were living it,” one said.

On the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, law enforcement in Progreso turned a watchful eye toward the escalating violence.

Progreso, which has a police force of 11 officers and four patrol units, is located just a half-mile from the Mexico border.

Interim Police Chief Alberto Rodriguez said his officers would be some of the first to have to stem any violence that might spill across the border.

But if violence reaches Progreso, Rodriguez said his department would have only limited resources with which to react.

“It’s very hard to try to prepare for something like that or to do something else because we just don’t have the resources,” Rodriguez said. “We really need more manpower and equipment here in general.”

Rodriguez has stepped up his force as much as he can, he said, keeping his four patrol units on the streets as much as possible and keeping a close watch near the Progreso International Bridge. But he said his department is already stretched thin.

“Of course I’m worried,” he said. “I would like to have more officers on the roadways patrolling, just in case … but we’re doing all we can.”

“We’re pretty close to the border, and when they say there are all these border threats and everything, I think about how we just don’t have the equipment to do anything more,” Rodriguez said.

The Laredo Police Department has offered to donate used equipment to Progreso’s police force, he said. Rodriguez wouldn’t elaborate on specific equipment that his department needs but said the donated resources from Laredo should arrive by mid-March.