Here is the latest U.S. State Department travel advisory after recent violence across Mexico

Confronting the cartels

The U.S. continues to monitor drug gang activity in Baja California after a recent spasm of violence across Mexico. The Aug. 12 instructions to U.S. government personnel in the nation to shelter in place are no longer in effect.

The good news is most of Mexico is safe to visit, but the U.S. State Department does advise against travel to some areas of Mexico.

On Aug. 9, a wave of violence began in Jalisco and Guanajuato states when the Jalisco New Generation Cartel responded to the arrest of one of its presumed leaders by setting vehicles and businesses on fire. On Aug. 11, a brawl between members of rival criminal gangs in a Ciudad Juárez jail and a subsequent wave of attacks in the northern border city claimed the lives of at least 10 people, including nongang members.

Mexico News Daily and Reforma newspapers reported the violence spread to several Baja California cities Aug. 12 – including Tijuana and state capital Mexicali – and returned to Guanajuato, Mexico’s most violent state.

Armed men seized and set alight at least 19 vehicles in Tecate, Tijuana, Playas de Rosarito, Mexicali and Ensenada. Public buses and trucks were among the vehicles set ablaze, reportedly by Jalisco cartel-affiliated criminals. Ten vehicles were torched in Tijuana to block roads.

Some 300 soldiers and 50 National Guard members were dispatched to Tijuana on Aug. 13, where thousands of guard troops are permanently based.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador advised citizens to remain calm. “To the people of Mexico, I say be calm. There is governability; there is stability,” he said at his regular news conference.

López Obrador said there were “only” 196 homicides across Mexico between Aug. 12 and Aug. 14, not 260 as some media outlets reported.

What cartel is responsible

The Jalisco cartel is relatively new. The Congressional Research Service reported that the cartel, originally known as the Zeta Killers, made its first appearance in 2011 with a roadside display of 35 bodies of rival gang Los Zetas.

In 2015, the Mexican government declared the Jalisco cartel one of the most dangerous in the country. In 2016, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said the same when it described the group as one of the world’s “most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations.”

According to some analysts, the Jalisco cartel has pursued an aggressive growth strategy underwritten by U.S. demand for Mexican methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers the Jalisco cartel a top U.S. threat and Mexico’s best-armed criminal group. The DEA has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of one of its kingpins, known as El Mencho. He is a former police officer who once served time for heroin trafficking in California.

Divide and conquer?

The cartels are more fragmented and competitive than in the past 20 years, but analysts disagree about the extent of cartel fragmentation. In response to former Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s strong anti-drug efforts, fragmentation that began in 2010 brought new actors into the criminal environment, such as Los Zetas and the Knights Templar. By 2018, an array of smaller organizations was active, and some of the once-small groups, such as the Jalisco cartel, had filled the space left after other criminal groups had been disrupted by arrests, deaths and internal dynamics.

The U.S. State Department’s travel advisories

Level 4: The areas with the sternest “do not travel” advisory, because of kidnappings and other crimes, are the northern border state of Tamaulipas and the Pacific coast states of Sinaloa, Colima, Michoacán and Guerrero. They are shown in red on the map below.

Level 3: Baja California has been added to the list of states to which visitors are advised to “reconsider travel” because of crime. The 10 other states in that category are Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Mexico, Morelos, Nayarit, Sonora and Zacatecas. They are shown in orange.

Sources: Congressional Research Service, DEA, U.S. State Department, Stratfor, Mexico News Daily, Reforma, Mexican Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System

Source: Orange County Register