Mexican cartel updates

In early October 2011 a small sedan apparently filled with cartel gunmen rapidly pulled in front of a military vehicle, drawing the military patrol into a car chase in downtown Monterrey, Mexico. After a brief pursuit, the vehicle carrying the cartel gunmen turned at an intersection. As the military vehicle slowed to negotiate the turn, an improvised explosive device (IED) concealed in a parked car at the intersection detonated. The incident appears to have been intended to lure the military patrol into a designated attack zone. While the ambush did not kill any soldiers, it did cause them to break off their chase.

Though this IED ambush is interesting in itself for a number of reasons, we would like to use it as a lens to explore a deeper topic, namely, how strategic analyses a tactical incident like this one can be. Further on into our writing we want to address how matters such as gun running straw-men and their cohorts can destroy all the intelligence one could ever have. 

Here is the humanity we all say is civil – Hundreds of violent incidents take place every day worldwide, from fuel depot explosions in Sirte, Libya, to shootings in southern Thailand to grenade attacks in Nairobi, Kenya — just a few of the things that happened on a single day this week.

Indeed, a typical day sees dozens of incidents in Mexico alone, from shootings and beheadings to kidnappings and cargo theft. Unless one has a method to triage such incidents, they quickly can overwhelm an analyst, dragging him or her down into the weeds struggling to understand the tactical details of every one. This can result in information overload. (In other words, let’s not contaminate the scene with thousands of guns from the U.S.)

However in order to sort this methodology for placing items in context begins with our interrelated array of net assessments and forecasts. Net assessments are high-level overviews of the significant issues driving the current behavior of nations, regions and other significant international players. Forecasts can be drawn from these baseline assessments to predict how these actors will behave, and how that behavior will impact regional dynamics.

In the case of Mexico, we have long considered the country’s criminal cartels significant tactical-level warriors, and we have established an analytical framework for understanding them. A very important real world occurrence is looking into the similarities of design, manufacturing, and materials used in an explosive device. For example we know that Mexico is over-wrought with drug cartel members at war with each other, yet how much do we know about their interrelated training, negotiations, and tactics are influenced by those say from the Middle East? 

Based upon this tactical framework, we then establish intelligence guidance. This lays out tripwire events that our analysts, regional open-source monitoring teams and even our on-the-ground sources are to watch for that either support or refute our forecast. Furthermore, we also believe that this is where we get involved! How successful would the events of 9/11 been if a keen eye would have been astute in…Laurel, Maryland?

It should be made known that in whatever capacity challenging an assessment or forecast is one of the most important things an employee can do. This ensures we stay intellectually honest and on target. There is nothing more analytically damaging than an analyst who falls in love with his own assessment, or a team of analysts who buy into groupthink.

We believe that “Operation Gunrunner” was originally set-up to be free of the group and cultural dysfunction and later evolved into Fast & Furious. Furthermore, it should be clearly noted that under the current administration with the variants in which agency will be working today (i.e., Customs and Immigration Enforcement, ICE) moreover, and rather unfortunately with Congressional hearings going on that itemize when, where, and how an individual is not telling the truth it only gets worse.

Do you for an instant think that anyone within our current intelligence communities are going to take time to listen to an observant citizen? These agency officials did not take the time to listen to their own agents who are in the field!

We believe that it is the common duty of every American to find the law enforcement agency that openly listens to you and who will take the necessary steps to make your information be heard. ”Dissecting a Mexican Cartel Bombing in Monterrey” Reprinted in parts by permission.

Much more coming at you…