Mexican president skeptical of Trump's offer to take on cartels after ambush in Sonora

Rafael Carranza | The Republic | azcentral.com

Top Mexican officials, including President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, appeared to blame warring cartels for the deadly ambush Monday that left nine U.S. citizens dead, including six children, in a rural area of Sonora about 70 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

The incident drew the attention overnight of U.S. President Donald Trump, who also blamed "two vicious drug cartels" for the attack on the three families traveling to a wedding when they were ambushed by armed men near Bavispe, Sonora.

"This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning.

Trump's offer to the Mexican government was met with skepticism by López Obrador, who promised to call Trump Tuesday to discuss the ambush attack.

During his daily press conference at his presidential palace in Mexico City, he told reporters that, despite Trump's offer, taking on the cartels was an internal security matter.

Still, he kept the door open for some limited cooperation between his government and U.S. officials to help investigate Monday's ambush.

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"This is a matter that is up to us, the Government of Mexico, to solve in an independent manner and exercising our sovereignty," López Obrador said in response to a question about Trump's tweet.

"We greatly, greatly thank President Trump, to any foreign government that would like to cooperate, that would like to help, but in these cases, we have to act with the independence in accordance to our Constitution, and with our tradition of independence and sovereignty," he added.

The White House said Tuesday that López Obrador spoke with Trump about Monday's attack and the efforts to confront cartel violence in Mexico and the region.

"President Trump made clear that the United States condemns these senseless acts of violence that took the lives of nine American citizens and offered Mexico assistance to ensure the perpetrators face justice," said Hogan Gidley, White House deputy press secretary.

One of the potential avenues for assistance could come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The relatives of the nine people killed in Sonora have reached out to the FBI for help. That's one idea López Obrador signaled he'd consider.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., asked FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday about the ambush during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Sinema noted that the nine people killed had relatives in Arizona and that "my state is hurting right now." She asked Wray about the FBI's possible involvement in the investigation.

"In this situation, will the FBI play a role in bringing these perpetrators to justice ensuring that the families receive some redress?" she asked.

Wray responded that their office in Mexico has already reached out to the Mexican government to offer their assistance, and that the agency's Victims Services division will be working with the relatives in the U.S.

"What role the FBI will be able to play in Mexico depends a lot on the willingness of our Mexican partners to embrace and bring us in, and that's still something that's being worked out," he said. "It's a very fluid situation right now."

A través del presidente Trump, envié mi más profundo pésame a los familiares y amigos de quienes fueron asesinados en los límites de Chihuahua y Sonora.



Le agradecí su disposición de apoyarnos y le informé que las instituciones del Gobierno de México actúan para hacer justicia. pic.twitter.com/nyls6gix86 — Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) November 5, 2019

Monday's attack happened in a rural, mountainous community located in the state line between the two northern states of Sonora and Chihuahua. The ambush left three women and six children dead. Several other children were injured.

State and federal investigators in Mexico are looking into whether this may have been a case of mistaken identity.

The area near the site of the ambush is very mountainous and sparsely populated, with limited government control along large swaths of territory. It's in the middle of two key, and very profitable smuggling routes into the United States.

To the west, the powerful Sinaloa Cartel controls the flow of illegal drugs through the deserts of Sonora into Arizona. While to the east, the rival Juarez cartel controls trafficking into El Paso and the surrounding desert areas.

Mexico's Public Safety Secretary Alfonso Durazo is a native of Bavispe, Sonora, near the site where the ambush took place. A spokesperson for his office said on he was on his way to Bavispe to assess the situation.

Earlier in the day, Durazo addressed cartel activity and the ongoing battle between various factions for control of this mountainous area.

"This is a zone that is disputed by several criminal groups. There is an organized crime cell aligned with the Pacific Cartel (Sinaloa Cartel) that has a relevant presence, a criminal presence in the area around Agua Prieta and in that part of the mountains, at the boundary between Chihuahua and Sonora," Durazo explained.

"But there are also criminal groups from the Chihuahua side that aim to take control of the territorial limits of Sonora, supported by other criminal groups in Sonora," he added.

The U.S. State Department has routinely barred its employees from traveling to most of eastern Sonora, especially along the boundary with Chihuahua, citing those areas of the state as a "key location used by the international drug trade and human trafficking networks."

Monday's deadly ambush in Sonora comes more than two weeks after a botched government operation in the city of Cuilacán to capture one of the sons of infamous Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

López Obrador has admitted that his administration agreed to free Ovidio Guzmán López, after Sinaloa Cartel gunmen overwhelmed the Mexican military and essentially held the city of Culiacán hostage during shootouts following his attempted capture on Oct. 17.

During his press conference Tuesday, reporters pressed López Obrador over whether the ambush attack on the three families would finally result in a shift in his strategy to tackle cartel violence in the country.

"No, no, no. We think that violence, I will repeat it again, cannot be confronted with violence," he said. "We arrived precisely to this point because they wanted to fight fire with fire."

Before his election, the Mexican president campaigned against his predecessors' policies to deploy the military to the streets to fight the cartels around the country, calling it a "failed strategy."

Since taking office last year, he has implemented his approach of "abrazos, no bolazos" or "hugs, not bullets" when it comes to the cartels. But critics say that policy has instead strengthened the cartels at the expense of the government.

López Obrador signaled there would be no changes in strategy for the time being. He ruled out going back his predecessor's tougher approach to using the military to fight the cartels.

"Of course, it's very painful. Of course, we would like for this not to happen, but we don't think we can solve the problem through bloodshed and fire by pelting, massacring, through the use of force."

On Tuesday, Sonora Gov. Claudia Pavlovich expressed her "indignation" over the deaths of the three women and six children ambushed in her state.

The state government has deployed dozens of its officers and investigators to the site of Monday's ambush. They're working with their counterparts in Chihuahua and the federal government to piece together what happened.

They are under pressure to find those responsible.

"We have to give results, because that's what the people want, results," Pavlovich said. "My condolences to the friends and family suffering, and I give them my commitment as governor and mother."

Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza.

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