Mexican Soldiers

ht Mexican soldiers, unaware they had strayed over the international border, were arrested near here Sunday after they mistook three hunters for American trespassers and confiscated their guns. The soldiers, members of the 60th Infantry Battalion, thought they were conducting a routine trespassing arrest before they were surprised by a simple fact of geography--they themselves were the trespassers and had to relinquish their weapons, said Ed Pyeatt, spokesman for the U.S.

Mexican soldiers clashed with gunmen for hours in the capital of the coastal state of Veracruz, leaving at least 12 suspects and two soldiers dead, authorities said Friday. The shooting ended early Friday and spanned at least two neighborhoods in the normally quiet city of Xalapa, Mexican news reports said. Mexican army officials said gunmen opened fire when infantry soldiers arrived at a home about 6 p.m. Thursday. The military did not immediately specify the purpose of the raid.

An ambush by suspected Marxist rebels that killed three soldiers in Mexico's Guerrero state probably was revenge for an army attack earlier this month, and more bloodshed can be expected, analysts said Tuesday. The clash, which showed a second guerrilla war is heating up on Mexico's impoverished southern flank, left three soldiers dead and three injured when attackers fired on a military patrol Monday.

Mexico has been hit by another international human rights judgment against its army. In a long-awaited decision, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against Mexico and in favor of two peasant ecologists who had long claimed they were illegally detained and tortured by Mexican soldiers working at the behest of powerful logging companies. It is the third such case to go against Mexico this year and was applauded by human rights organizations, which called for the government to submit military abuses to civilian justice.

Four Mexican soldiers arrested for entering U.S. territory in pursuit of smugglers crossed the border accidentally and did not mean to violate American sovereignty, a Mexican diplomat said Monday. "It's not an invasion, of course," said Luis Morones, Mexico's deputy counsel general in San Diego. Both Morones and U.S. Border Patrol officials said they expected that the four members of the Mexican naval infantry would be released soon and allowed to return to Mexico.

Mexico has been hit by another international human rights judgment against its army. In a long-awaited decision, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against Mexico and in favor of two peasant ecologists who had long claimed they were illegally detained and tortured by Mexican soldiers working at the behest of powerful logging companies. It is the third such case to go against Mexico this year and was applauded by human rights organizations, which called for the government to submit military abuses to civilian justice.

The curly-haired suspect in the sweatshirt faced the flash of news cameras, looking impossibly small. "When did you start to kill?" he was asked. "How much did you earn?" "How many did you execute?" He said he began killing at age 11. A drug cartel paid him $200 a week. He'd killed four people. "How?" came the final question. "I cut their throats," he replied. Then masked Mexican soldiers hustled him off, the way they do other drug suspects. The detainee's name was Edgar Jimenez Lugo, but everyone knew him as Ponchi.

A confrontation between Zapatistas and Mexican soldiers in the southern state of Chiapas has left nine people wounded, rebels and military authorities said. The Defense Ministry said 40 people armed with sticks, machetes and rocks attacked a patrol Wednesday near San Jose la Esperanza "in a clear provocation." Seven soldiers and police were wounded.

Mexican soldiers clashed with gunmen for hours in the capital of the coastal state of Veracruz, leaving at least 12 suspects and two soldiers dead, authorities said Friday. The shooting ended early Friday and spanned at least two neighborhoods in the normally quiet city of Xalapa, Mexican news reports said. Mexican army officials said gunmen opened fire when infantry soldiers arrived at a home about 6 p.m. Thursday. The military did not immediately specify the purpose of the raid.

Mexican soldiers killed an American citizen after shots were fired from her car as it approached an army inspection post near the U.S-Mexican border, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. The spokesman said Patricia Kane Fagan, whose hometown was not specified, and her companion, an unidentified Swiss citizen, failed early Thursday to heed orders to stop at the post in the town of Agua Prieta, just over the Arizona border.

The curly-haired suspect in the sweatshirt faced the flash of news cameras, looking impossibly small. "When did you start to kill?" he was asked. "How much did you earn?" "How many did you execute?" He said he began killing at age 11. A drug cartel paid him $200 a week. He'd killed four people. "How?" came the final question. "I cut their throats," he replied. Then masked Mexican soldiers hustled him off, the way they do other drug suspects. The detainee's name was Edgar Jimenez Lugo, but everyone knew him as Ponchi.

Federal authorities discovered a tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana that led to the seizure of more than 25 tons of marijuana, one of the largest-ever drug seizures in San Diego, officials said. The 1,800-foot transnational passageway ? roughly equivalent to six football fields in length ? isn't the longest or the most sophisticated ever built, but it is one of the few instances in which authorities were able to seize drugs on both sides of the border. The scale of the operation pointed to the work of a major Mexican drug cartel, authorities said, and comes two weeks after Mexican authorities discovered a record 134 tons of marijuana in an industrial area near Tijuana.

Four Mexican soldiers crossed the border and held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico, authorities said. The confrontation occurred early Sunday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 85 miles southwest of Tucson, in an area fenced only with barbed wire, said Dove Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Border Patrol.

Mexican soldiers disrupted the graveside burial ceremony of a U.S. Marine in San Luis de la Paz, objecting to ceremonial arms carried by two Marines taking part in the rite. A Marine contingent was participating in the funeral of Lance Cpl. Juan Lopez, who was killed in an ambush in Ramadi, Iraq, on June 21 and was being buried in his hometown. The two rifles looked real but could not be fired.

In what could amount to the most serious blow ever against the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug gang, Mexican authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of a senior cartel figure who they say ran vast cross-border trafficking operations and directed the torture and murder of rivals that serve as the group's bloody hallmark.

The U.S. Border Patrol agents' union alleged that Mexican soldiers who crossed the border into New Mexico and fired two shots last week may have been trying to collect a drug trafficker's bounty by killing U.S. law officers. The union called for an investigation into the incident despite the U.S. government's position that it was just an accident. "That was no accident," Joseph Dassaro, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, said in El Paso, Texas.

The U.S. Border Patrol agents' union alleged that Mexican soldiers who crossed the border into New Mexico and fired two shots last week may have been trying to collect a drug trafficker's bounty by killing U.S. law officers. The union called for an investigation into the incident despite the U.S. government's position that it was just an accident. "That was no accident," Joseph Dassaro, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, said in El Paso, Texas.

Mexican soldiers disrupted the graveside burial ceremony of a U.S. Marine in San Luis de la Paz, objecting to ceremonial arms carried by two Marines taking part in the rite. A Marine contingent was participating in the funeral of Lance Cpl. Juan Lopez, who was killed in an ambush in Ramadi, Iraq, on June 21 and was being buried in his hometown. The two rifles looked real but could not be fired.

A confrontation between Zapatistas and Mexican soldiers in the southern state of Chiapas has left nine people wounded, rebels and military authorities said. The Defense Ministry said 40 people armed with sticks, machetes and rocks attacked a patrol Wednesday near San Jose la Esperanza "in a clear provocation." Seven soldiers and police were wounded.

An ambush by suspected Marxist rebels that killed three soldiers in Mexico's Guerrero state probably was revenge for an army attack earlier this month, and more bloodshed can be expected, analysts said Tuesday. The clash, which showed a second guerrilla war is heating up on Mexico's impoverished southern flank, left three soldiers dead and three injured when attackers fired on a military patrol Monday.