The UK’s Daily Mail has this today,
Is the U.S. sending Seal Team Six to capture top drug cartel kingpin? American military ‘plotting military operation similar to bin Laden mission’
- Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman is one of Mexico’s most wanted drug cartel kingpins
- He escaped from prison in daring breakout in 2001
- Mexican President Felipe Calderon reportedly reached out to U.S. for help in taking out Guzman in military raid
- U.S. agencies have allegedly grown frustrated with Mexico’s inability to catch Guzman
- Bin Laden killed in Seal Team Six raid in Abbotabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011
It’s an extraordinary story in many levels, not the least of which is this,
Mexico’s Procesor magazine (English translation) reported that a new plan to get Guzman was hatched by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who felt the only way to catch him was through a military raid.
But when Calderon was turned down by Mexico’s army and naval forces, he turned to the U.S. government, which has made catching or killing Guzman a priority.
Sources told Procesor that the U.S. has grown increasingly more frustrated with Mexico’s failure to bring Guzman to justice – especially after a joint effort by U.S. agencies provided the information needed to catch him.
The original article on Proceso is based on unnamed sources in the US and Mexican military. Apparently the mission has been delayed because the US insists on going alone, which the Mexican Marines and Army flatly rejected. Felipe Calderón will soon be out of office as Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, is scheduled to take office on December 1, 2012,
And then there’s the fact that the politicians in Washington are running for re-election. Who’s going to want to stir another hornet’s next now?
In all, color me skeptical.
UPDATE,
Linked by The Mex Files. Thanks!
(“The far right-wing Latin American website”? Hah!)