That has raised concerns because President Andrés Manuel López Obrador won approval to create the force in 2019 with a commitment in the constitution that it would be under nominal political control and that the army would be off the streets by 2024. However, neither the National Guard nor the army have been able to reduce insecurity in the country. Last week, drug cartels staged widespread arson and shooting attacks, terrorizing citizens in three main northwestern cities in a bold challenge to the state. On Saturday, authorities sent 300 army special forces and 50 members of the National Guard to the border city of Tijuana. However, López Obrador wants to keep the soldiers involved in policing and remove political control of the National Guard, whose officers and commanders are mostly soldiers, with military training and salaries. Members of the security forces stand near a burning truck after it was set on fire by unknown people in Tijuana, Mexico, August 12, 2022. JORGE DUENES / REUTERS Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero has publicly appealed to “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to stop the growing trend of targeting innocent citizens. “Today we say to the organized crime groups that commit these crimes, that Tijuana will remain open and take care of its citizens,” Caballero said in a video. “And we also ask them to settle their debts with defaulters, not with families and hard-working citizens.” The extent of the violence was still unclear on Saturday. Late Friday, the US Consulate General in Tijuana said in a statement that it was “aware of reports of multiple vehicle fires, barricades and heavy police activity in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada and Tecate.” Karina Bazarte, a reporter from CBS San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV, has family in Tijuana and travels there weekly, but said “we couldn’t go home” amid the violence. “Literally, people were at the border line to go back home to the United States and their cars were starting up,” Bazarte said. On Saturday, few people took to the streets in Tijuana and many of the bus and passenger van services stopped operating, leaving some residents unable to get where they were going. “Let them fight it out among themselves, but leave us alone,” said Tijuana resident Blanca Estela Fuentes as she searched for public transportation. “So they’re killing each other, they can do whatever they want, but the public why is it our fault?” Later on Saturday, Caballero said some bus and van routes had resumed service. The federal public safety department said one person was injured in the violence and that federal, state and local forces arrested 17 suspects, including seven in Tijuana and four in Rosarito and Mexicali. It said some of the suspects were identified as members of the Jalisco cartel, the group blamed for burning down shops and shooting people earlier this week in the states of Jalisco and Guanajuato. The area around Tijuana, which borders Southern California, has long been a profitable drug-trafficking corridor dominated by the Arellano Felix cartel, but has since become a battleground between various gangs, including the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels. The mayor’s comment that Tijuana remains open was an apparent reference to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across the street from El Paso, Texas, where some classes and public events were canceled after similar violence on Thursday. Alleged gang members killed nine people, including four radio station employees, in Ciudad Juarez after a fight between rival gangs at a local prison left two inmates dead. On Tuesday, armed drug cartel gunmen burned vehicles and businesses in the western states of Jalisco and Guanajuato in response to an attempt to arrest a high-ranking leader of the Jalisco cartel. Oxxo, a national chain of convenience stores owned by Femsa, the country’s largest bottling company, said 25 of its stores in Guanajuato – which borders Jalisco, home of the cartel of the same name – were either completely or partially burned on Tuesday. Speaking about the violence in Ciudad Juarez on Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said: “They attacked the civilian, innocent population as a kind of revenge. It was not just a conflict between two groups, but it got to the point where they started shooting civilians, innocent people. That’s the most unfortunate thing about this case.” The shooting killed four MegaRadio station employees who were broadcasting a live promotional event outside a pizza shop in Ciudad Juarez. Such random violence is not without precedent in Mexico. In June last year, a rival faction of the Gulf Cartel entered the border town of Reynosa and killed 14 people the governor described as “innocent civilians.” The army responded and killed four suspected gunmen.
