An explosive report released April 14 by the non-profit Judicial Watch, citing official Mexican military and law-enforcement sources, states that the terrorist group ISIS, now calling itself the “Islamic State,” is operating a camp in Mexico just miles away from the U.S. border. The sources also told the government watchdog that human smugglers working for Mexican drug cartels were helping ISIS operatives cross the U.S. border into New Mexico and Texas. Moments after its release, the Judicial Watch report sparked headlines across the United States and around the world. And while government sources were quick to issue official denials, considering the troubling facts behind the rise of ISIS and the U.S. government’s well-documented relationship with some Mexican drug cartels, it would hardly be surprising if the seemingly unrelated forces were cooperating.
According to the Judicial Watch report, relying on sources including a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector, the ISIS camp is situated about eight miles from the U.S. border near El Paso, Texas. The area is reportedly known as “Anapra” and is just west of the violence-plagued Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. “Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States,” Judicial Watch reported, citing the same knowledgeable sources. Pointing to information provided by the Mexican officials, the group reported that a joint operation involving the Mexican Army and federal law-enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, Muslim prayer rugs, and “plans” of Fort Bliss (entrance shown), which houses the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division and is in El Paso near the U.S.-Mexico border.
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According to law-enforcement and intelligence sources who spoke with Judicial Watch, the area where the ISIS camp is reported to be is controlled by the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Cartel, also known as the Juárez Cartel, and its enforcement arm known as La Línea. Another gang originally formed in El Paso, the Barrio Azteca, reportedly operates in the region as well. Cartel control of the area makes it a “dangerous and hostile operating environment” for military and police operations, the group said. So-called “coyotes” working with the cartels in human smuggling operations are helping ISIS terrorists move across the border into New Mexico and Texas, particularly near Sunland Park and Fort Hancock, the sources were quoted as saying.
“These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing,” Judicial Watch said. “Mexican intelligence sources report that ISIS intends to exploit the railways and airport facilities in the vicinity of Santa Teresa, NM (a US port-of-entry). The sources also say that ISIS has ‘spotters’ located in the East Potrillo Mountains of New Mexico (largely managed by the Bureau of Land Management) to assist with terrorist border crossing operations. ISIS is conducting reconnaissance of regional universities; the White Sands Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, NM; Ft. Bliss; and the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, NM.”
After the news broke, Obama administration officials who have deliberately refused to secure the border or enforce immigration laws, along with their apologists in the press, were quick to deny the validity of the reports. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, for example, which has led the executive-branch plot to provide amnesty in violation of federal law, said about the ISIS-in-Mexico report that “there’s no indication that this claim has any validity to it.” Local media outlet ABC-7 reported that it “checked with several federal law enforcement agencies” and was told that the Judicial Watch report was “unverified.” The same agencies reportedly claimed without elaborating that “it is unlikely that ISIS is in Anapra or Juarez, Mexico.”
Congressman and pro-amnesty zealot Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), who represents the district including El Paso, posted a message on Facebook also claiming that the report was essentially unsubstantiated fearmongering. “Today I reached out to the Mexican government, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Northern Command,” he said. “None of them have found any evidence, credible or otherwise, that Isis is in Juárez.” O’Rourke lamented that the story was “terrible for the country’s image of the border,” and said the people of El Paso should fight back “with the facts.” He also claimed the bosses of numerous federal bureaucracies had claimed there was no terrorist threat at the border — words he may eventually regret.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told OneNewsNow that smugglers have apparently already helped move ISIS operatives into the United States. He is also not surprised by the reactions of the establishment media and the administration to the explosive information. “A national security threat on the border is something that the Washington media doesn’t like to talk about because it makes many of the politicians that they try to cater to uncomfortable,” Fitton was quoted as saying. “So asking the Obama administration about this, you might as well be asking Hillary Clinton about the Benghazi attack: they’re never going to tell you the truth.”
Indeed, Andy Ramirez, president of the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council (LEOAC), also vehemently disagreed with the denials being spouted by official sources and open-borders advocates about the ISIS presence in northern Mexico. “It’s believed by my sources that they’re already infiltrating across the US-Mexico border,” said Ramirez, who maintains an extensive network of sources within law enforcement and has testified on numerous occasions before Congress on security and border issues. “And yes it is a very credible threat.” He also told The New American that “drug cartels, alien smuggling organizations, and terrorist groups alike all know that the Obama Regime is not allowing CBP and ICE to enforce immigration law, so they can cross at will and embed on US soil as they please.”
In fact, recent congressional hearings confirmed yet again that the Obama administration is openly and brazenly refusing to enforce immigration laws or control the border. Congressman John Culberson (R-Texas) put it bluntly after questioning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) boss Sarah R. Saldaña: “Director Saldaña confirmed today that the administration’s refusal to enforce our immigration laws as written is intentional, and that they will continue to only enforce the law as they see fit.” But lawmakers need to do more than hold hearings and complain if the threat is going to be dealt with, Ramirez explained. “What must be done is that the Congress needs to begin impeaching people across the Obama administration that refuse to enforce our laws,” the border-security advocate said.
The idea that ISIS operatives might be in Mexico collaborating with drug cartels is hardly as far-fetched as it might seem at first glance. For one, it must be understood that the notion that the U.S. government is seriously waging a terror war is discredited by the fact that the southern border remains as porous as ever. Considering the fact that the Obama administration has been openly supporting and arming self-declared al-Qaeda leaders — in Libya, Syria, and beyond — the terror war begins to sound like a giant fraud. Some analysts said the Obama administration had even “switched sides” in the war. According to Vice President Joe Biden and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, various Islamic regimes in Obama’s supposed “anti” ISIS coalition have even been funding and arming the terrorist group butchering its way across Syria and Iraq.
When it comes to the supposed war on drugs and the cartels, the situation is equally dire. As The New American reported last year, the U.S. government had a secret agreement with the ruthless Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel for over a decade that allowed it to operate with impunity under multiple presidential administrations. The Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder, who is currently in criminal contempt of Congress for attempting to cover up the scandal, were even exposed sending heavy weaponry to the Mexican drug cartels as part of operation “Fast and Furious.” Perhaps even more astounding is that federal law enforcement sources quoted in leaked documents said that ICE had been deliberately allowing cartel hitmen into the United States to commit murder. Plus, cartels want to make money — and ISIS has got plenty of it.
It is hardly unreasonable to suspect that, eventually, a terrorist attack perpetrated by illegal border crossers allowed in by the federal government’s policies — whether ISIS or any other group — will occur on U.S. soil. If and when that were to happen, more than a few analysts have suggested that it could be exploited as a justification for stripping yet more liberties from the American people, or even declaring martial law. For the sake of national security, the rule of law, U.S. sovereignty, and the freedoms protected under the U.S. Constitution, Congress must act to secure the border.
Photo of security checkpoint at the entrance to Ft. Bliss in El Paso, Texas: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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