Hezbollah ‘financier’ pleads guilty to evading US sanctions

Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi. (Credit: rewardsforjustice)
Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi. (Credit: rewardsforjustice)
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Updated 21 September 2024
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Hezbollah ‘financier’ pleads guilty to evading US sanctions

Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi. (Credit: rewardsforjustice)
  • The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has said Bazzi “has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah over the years, generated from his business activities in Belgium, Lebanon, Iraq and throughout West Africa”

NEW YORK: A former Lebanese diplomat accused of being a financier for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement pleaded guilty Friday to evading US financial sanctions against him and his organization, branded as “terrorist” by the US government.
Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, 60, who holds Lebanese, British and Belgian citizenship, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to conspiracy to conduct unlawful transactions with an international terrorist, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.
Bazzi had “accepted responsibility for his role in conspiring to secretly move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the United States to Lebanon in violation of sanctions placed on him for assisting the terrorist group Hezbollah,” US prosecutor Breon Peace said.
Bazzi faces up to 20 years imprisonment, as well as deportation and forfeiture of the $828,528 involved in illegal transactions.
No sentencing date has been set.
The State Department in May 2018 had declared Bazzi to be a “specially designated global terrorist” and offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has said Bazzi “has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah over the years, generated from his business activities in Belgium, Lebanon, Iraq and throughout West Africa.”
In February 2023, he was arrested in Romania and extradited to the US.
The US attorney’s statement said Bazzi had worked with an accomplice, Talal Chahine, who remains on the loose in Lebanon.
It said the two men attempted to launder their transactions through purchases and fictitious loans of equipment for a restaurant in China, a property in Lebanon and a family loan to Kuwait.
According to investigative journalism outlet ProPublica, Bazzi was appointed honorary consul in Lebanon by the government of Gambia in 2005. The volunteer diplomat role helped him access unique connections and benefits, which can be ripe for abuse.
The United States has declared Hezbollah as a terrorist organization over its attacks on American military members, government employees and civilians abroad.
The militant group has been in Israel’s crosshairs amid the war in Gaza, with the commander of an elite Hezbollah unit killed in a Beirut strike on Friday.
It also followed two waves of explosions, on Tuesday and Wednesday, of communication devices used by Hezbollah members, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel.

 


Assassination attempts and new threats have reshaped how Donald Trump campaigns

Assassination attempts and new threats have reshaped how Donald Trump campaigns
Updated 12 sec ago
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Assassination attempts and new threats have reshaped how Donald Trump campaigns

Assassination attempts and new threats have reshaped how Donald Trump campaigns
  • Beyond the two attempts on his life, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran
  • Trump speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country

NEW YORK: Donald Trump was onstage at a rally on Long Island last month, talking about taxes, when he appeared momentarily spooked by something he’d spotted over his shoulder.
“I thought this was a wise guy coming up,” he explained, joking that he was getting his elbow ready to fight back.
“You know I got a little bit of a yip problem here, right?” he added to laughs, using a term familiar to golf aficionados to describe a phenomenon once blamed on performance anxiety where players suddenly lose the ability to make easy shots. “I was all ready to start duking it out.”
It was a fleeting moment passed off as a joke. But as he returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally at the site where a gunman opened fire in July, grazing his ear with a bullet, the scare underscores the lasting fallout for the candidate and his campaign even as much of the national attention has shifted to other crises.
Beyond the two attempts on his life in as many months, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran, which has also been blamed for hacking top campaign officials and allies, exacerbating anxieties already heightened by a stepped-up security apparatus and new restrictions on how he can campaign.
Trump’s allies insist he was not fundamentally changed by the gunman who fired from an unsecured roof at the rally in July or the would-be assailant in September who shoved a rifle barrel through the fence at his West Palm Beach golf course.
The picture of Trump standing, with blood streaked across his face, as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” has become the indelible image of the campaign.
“When you almost lose your life, it stays with you. It stays with him,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a close Trump ally. “But that doesn’t change his resolve. His resolve is just as strong as it ever has been.”
Threats have reshaped how he campaigns
Trump staffers are on edge. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies that have always been the signature of his campaigns.
Armed security officers now stand guard at the campaign’s Florida headquarters, and staff have been told to remain vigilant and alert.
Events have been canceled and moved around because the US Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump onstage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.
Trump has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of intentionally denying security resources to help Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, by preventing him from addressing large crowds.
“They couldn’t give me any help. And I’m so angry about it because what they’re doing is interfering in the election,” he said in a recent Fox News interview.
US Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Trump “is receiving heightened levels of US Secret Service protection” and that “our top priority is mitigating risks to ensure his continued safety at all times.” Biden expressed concern for Trump after both assassination attempts, saying in September, “Thank God the president is OK.”
Trump also now travels with a larger security footprint, with new traffic restrictions outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and a line of dump trucks and big guns on display outside Trump Tower in New York when he’s staying there.
As reporters filed into his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a press conference this summer, guests — including a little girl wearing a red, white and blue bathing suit — were forced to exit their cars and go through airport-style metal detectors as their vehicles were searched for bombs.
Trump’s campaign last week was briefed on continued threats from Iran in presumed retaliation for his administration’s killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge. In August, a Pakistani man alleged to have links to Iran was charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on US soil. Law enforcement did not name the targets of the alleged plot, but legal filings suggest Trump was a potential target.
Iranian hackers have also been charged with stealing information from Trump’s campaign and trying to pass it along to news organizations. In May, prosecutors say, the men charged began trying to penetrate the Trump campaign, successfully breaking into the email accounts of campaign officials and other Trump allies. They then sought to “weaponize” the stolen campaign material by sending unsolicited emails to people associated with Biden’s campaign. None of the recipients who worked for Biden responded.
The cyberattacks have forced some staff to change their email addresses and others to be wary of communicating online.
Trump already faced unprecedented legal jeopardy for a presidential candidate, with four criminal indictments — one resulting in a felony conviction with sentencing delayed until after the election, one case dismissed, and two pending — along with civil lawsuits that carry hundreds of millions of dollars in potential penalties.
“I think that from our perspective, just from the campaign standpoint, operationally, if there’s one group of people that can handle something like this thrown in their lap, it’s the team that Donald Trump assembled to run this campaign, just based on everything we’ve had to deal with, whether it’s lawsuits to keep him off the ballot, to indictments, to assassination attempts,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said.
Trump talks of divine intervention
As for Trump, he speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country. He also often says that assailants only go after consequential presidents.
“Obviously, when you come within a half an inch of a very different outcome, that’s going to impact you,” said New York Rep. Elize Stefanik, another ally who said she spoke to Trump the morning after the Butler shooting.
“Of course, those moments really make you consider a higher power, why you are so committed to helping save this country,” she said. “I think it has further empowered and energized President Trump.”
Trump was recently asked by NewsNation if he’s concerned about his safety ahead of his return to Butler. “Well, I’m always worried,” he responded.
“I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do,” he said. “And I said that, when I was shot, I said, we’re coming back. We’re going to come back. And I’m fulfilling a promise; I’m fulfilling really an obligation.”
His most loyal supporters at his rallies, including the one on Long Island where he joked about the “yips,” haven’t been dissuaded from seeing him in person.
“I know some people are scared to come, but I’m not,” said Eileen Deighan, 63, a nurse from nearby Yonkers, New York, who said she was inspired by Trump’s decision to keep on campaigning given the threats.
“The fact that he didn’t give up, he’s willing to fight for our country, how could you not support that?’ she asked. “That will that he has — doesn’t give up. It’s very contagious.”
Trump told his supporters at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday that he would continue fighting “no matter what obstacles and dangers are thrown on our path.” But he had another point to make.
“I tell you what, I had a good life before I did this,” he said. “Nobody was shooting at me. I had a hell of a life.”
 


In Michigan, Harris meets Arab American leaders angry over Israel

In Michigan, Harris meets Arab American leaders angry over Israel
Updated 05 October 2024
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In Michigan, Harris meets Arab American leaders angry over Israel

In Michigan, Harris meets Arab American leaders angry over Israel
  • On Wednesday, Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, virtually met with leaders from the Arab and Muslim community and said the administration supports a ceasefire in Gaza, diplomacy in Lebanon and stability in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

WASHINGTON/REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Michigan: Vice President Kamala Harris met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan, on Friday, as her presidential campaign seeks to win back voters angry at US support for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, two sources said.
The meeting is one of several attempts in recent days to mend fences with Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 but could withhold their votes from Harris in numbers that would cost her the key state of Michigan.
Harris met with Emgage Action, which recently endorsed her, the American Task Force on Lebanon, and a long-standing friend of Harris, Hala Hijazi, who has lost dozens of family members in Gaza, said the sources, who did not wish to be named.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Harris meets Arab American, Muslim groups

• Some declined invitation, ‘Uncommitted’ movement not invited

• Poll shows Harris and Trump at even levels of support among Arab Americans

Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, said he declined the invitation. Leaders from the Uncommitted National Movement protest campaign said they were not invited to the meeting.
A campaign official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Harris discussed the election and conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon during the meeting.
She expressed her concern on the scale of suffering in Gaza, civilian casualties and displacement in Lebanon and discussed efforts to end the war, the official said. She also discussed efforts to prevent a regional war, the official added.
Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, said he and other participants used the meeting to share their deep disappointment on the US handling of the crisis and called on her to do everything in her power to end the war and reset US policy in the region.
“Emgage Action asked Vice President Harris to impress upon President Biden the urgency of bringing an immediate end to the violence” in Gaza and Lebanon, Alzayat said.
On Wednesday, Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, virtually met with leaders from the Arab and Muslim community and said the administration supports a ceasefire in Gaza, diplomacy in Lebanon and stability in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the vice president’s office said.
On Thursday night, Harris’ vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, promised on a Muslim voters Zoom call that Muslims would have an equal role in a Harris administration.
Harris, a Democrat, faces Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 in what opinion polls show to be a tight presidential race.
Some Arab Americans believe Harris’ refusal to distance herself from President Biden’s policies in the Middle East, as Israel escalates its attacks, will cost her in November.
“Harris is going to lose Michigan,” said Ali Dagher, a Lebanese American attorney and community leader. “I will not be voting for Kamala Harris. No one I know will vote for her. I cannot find a single person in the community who supports her.”
A poll published this week by the Arab American Institute found Harris and Trump at roughly even levels of support among Arab Americans.
In Redford Township, Michigan, outside of Detroit, Harris celebrated the union deal that ended a major port strike. She spoke at a fire station whose workers are represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters, which on Thursday declined to make a presidential endorsement. The event was designed to show Harris has support among the union’s rank-and-file members, an aide said.
Later, in Flint, she appeared with United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain and vowed support for Michigan’s auto industry.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign said Harris is “putting a minimum of 37,000 auto jobs at risk by refusing to tell Michiganders if she still supports her proposed plan to ban all internal combustion engine cars by 2035.”
Critics say Biden and Harris have done too little to stop Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian enclave, while continuing to supply Israel with weapons to carry it out.
The Israeli military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, Palestinian health authorities say.
Israel responded to an Oct. 7, 2023, incursion by Hamas gunmen, who Israel says killed around 1,200 people and abducted about 250 hostages. Gaza has suffered a humanitarian crisis with nearly all its over 2 million people displaced and widespread hunger in the enclave.
In Lebanon more than 1,900 people have been killed and 9,000 wounded during almost a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, with most of the deaths in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Both Israeli and Hamas leaders are being investigated by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes committed in the Hamas attack and the subsequent Israeli response. Israel denies the accusations.

 


Thousands of Jewish pilgrims come to Ukraine for Rosh Hashana despite official warnings

Thousands of Jewish pilgrims come to Ukraine for Rosh Hashana despite official warnings
Updated 05 October 2024
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Thousands of Jewish pilgrims come to Ukraine for Rosh Hashana despite official warnings

Thousands of Jewish pilgrims come to Ukraine for Rosh Hashana despite official warnings
  • “Every year (since Russia’s full-scale invasion), I speak on Israeli television and radio, and I call on the (Jewish) pilgrims not to come to Ukraine

UMAN, Ukraine: Prayer chants and the sounding of traditional ram’s horns fill the air in the town of Uman, in central Ukraine, as thousands of pilgrims join an annual gathering to mark the Jewish new year, despite the war against Russia.
Uman, 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, is transformed for the celebration of Rosh Hashana. The streets are plastered with signs in Hebrew for the pilgrims who come to pray at the tomb of Rabbi Nachman, the great-grandson of the founder of Hasidic movement.
Despite Ukrainian and Israeli diplomats warning of the security threat, officials told The Associated Press that 35,000 pilgrims made the journey to Uman this year, the same as in earlier years.
Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, a leading figure in Ukraine’s Jewish community, was one of those who urged international pilgrims not to visit Ukraine due to security concerns but acknowledged that many would still make the trip regardless of the potential risks involved.
“Every year (since Russia’s full-scale invasion), I speak on Israeli television and radio, and I call on the (Jewish) pilgrims not to come to Ukraine. My primary concern is for the lives of people,” he said.
As the war in Ukraine rages for a third year, Russian army fires barrages of drones and missiles at Ukraine almost daily, leaving no region completely safe. Active combat is taking place along a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front, as Russian forces press their advantage in the eastern Donetsk region. This year alone, the Russian army has managed to capture several thousand square kilometers (miles) of Ukrainian territory, with the capture of the city of Vuhledar being their most recent notable achievement.
Nachman Shitrit, 18, who traveled to Uman from Haifa, Israel with his father, said he had made the pilgrimage over a dozen times.
“The war here didn’t scare me from traveling to Ukraine; there’s also war where I came from,” he told the AP.
This year’s pilgrimage comes at an increasingly volatile time in the Middle East. Israel is now engaged in a multifront war that includes the battles with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, attacks from Iran and strikes inside Syria, plus ongoing confrontations with armed militants in the West Bank and occasional attacks launched by Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and by the Houthis in Yemen.
The hostilities posed additional challenges to some pilgrims traveling to Ukraine this year.
Ukraine closed its air space in February 2022, at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, forcing visitors to travel overland via other European countries in order to reach Uman.
The United Jewish Community of Ukraine said Wednesday that more than 14,000 pilgrims were unable to travel to Uman, partly as a result of Iran’s attack on Israel Tuesday. Iran fired a barrage of nearly 180 missiles, causing cancelation of multiple flights from Israel in an act Iranian officials called retaliation for Israel’s recent strikes on Hezbollah.
Meir Shpanier, 23, who traveled from Tel Aviv, said the difficulty of the journey had made the experience more meaningful to him this year.
“I managed to get here by a miracle. My travel agent booked airplane tickets from Tel Aviv to Budapest. From there, a Ukrainian driver picked me up, and we drove 22 hours to Uman. But some of my friends had to travel through five countries.”
“Because I had to work hard to get here, it means more to me now. I think we’re all blessed to be here,” Shpanier said.

 


Death toll in worst Bosnian floods in years rises to 16, officials say

Death toll in worst Bosnian floods in years rises to 16, officials say
Updated 04 October 2024
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Death toll in worst Bosnian floods in years rises to 16, officials say

Death toll in worst Bosnian floods in years rises to 16, officials say
  • Bosnia’s Civil Defense said between 20 and 40 people were listed as missing
  • Edin Forto, the transportation minister of the Bosniak-Croat federation, said the situation in the affected areas was critical

DONJA JABLANICA, Bosnia: At least 16 people died in floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday and many others were missing as torrential rain and landslides destroyed homes, roads and bridges across the center of the country, officials said.
The municipality of Jablanica, about 70 km (43 miles) southwest of the capital Sarajevo, where the deaths were reported, was completely cut off after road and railway links were destroyed.
Sixteen people were killed, most of them in the Jablanica area, cantonal interior ministry spokesperson Ljudevit Maric, told Reuters. “Search for the missing continues,” he said.
Bosnia’s Civil Defense said between 20 and 40 people were listed as missing as they were either trapped under the rubble of carried away by flooding, N1 TV reported.
Bosnia’s inter-ethnic presidency — a Bosniak, Serb and Croat tripartite — said it requested military help for the wider Jablanica area, and engineers, rescue units and a helicopter were deployed, including some to rescue 17 people from a mental hospital.
Edin Forto, the transportation minister of the Bosniak-Croat federation, said the situation in the affected areas was critical.
“The flash flood ripped out entire houses, together with concrete slabs and foundations and carried them away... I have never seen anything like this,” he said.
Some houses had been reduced to rubble by landslides, in what appeared to be Bosnia’s worst flooding since at least 2014, when more than 20 died in floods.
“In some cases only parts of roofs can be seen. I cannot remember the crisis of such a magnitude since the (1992-1995) war,” said Darko Jukan, a spokesman for the regional government.
At an emergency session, Bosnia’s central government said it would allocate funds for the recovery of the affected areas.
The government of the Bosniak-Croat Federation declared a state of natural disaster in the flood-affected areas and set up a crisis committee to help alleviate the situation there.
Neighbouring Croatia and Serbia also offered Bosnia assistance in rescue operations.
Aldin Brasnjic, the head of the Civil Defense administration in the Bosniak-Croat federation, said rescuers could not reach a number of villages due to blocked roads and that upcoming rains would make their efforts more difficult.
“The search for the missing is priority at the moment. We think we will be able to complete this today and tomorrow,” he said.
In a video shared with Reuters on Friday, Robert Oroz showed his village of Luke, near the town of Fojnica in central Bosnia, flooded and littered with tree trunks, logs, branches and debris.
He said water receded for some time but started to rise again.
“Situation is disastrous ... A smokehouse for meat was here, it’s not anymore,” Oroz said.
The town of Kiseljak in central Bosnia was inundated after a river burst its banks. Brown water lapped at the doors of businesses and homes, drone footage taken by Reuters showed, although the waters had begun to recede on Friday afternoon.
Later on Friday, Bosnia’s election commission decided to postpone local elections set for this weekend in municipalities affected by floods, but to carry on with voting elsewhere.
The floods in Bosnia came after an unprecedented summer drought which caused many rivers and lakes to dry up, and affected agriculture and water supply to urban areas throughout the Balkans and most of Europe.
Meteorologists said extreme weather changes can be attributed to climate change.
Neighbouring Croatia was also hit by floods on Friday, though there were no reports of casualties. Authorities issued a severe weather warning for the Adriatic coast and central regions of the country.
Montenegro and Serbia issued similar warnings.


2 sisters from Egypt were among those killed in Mexican army shooting

2 sisters from Egypt were among those killed in Mexican army shooting
Updated 04 October 2024
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2 sisters from Egypt were among those killed in Mexican army shooting

2 sisters from Egypt were among those killed in Mexican army shooting
  • The sisters, and four other migrants from countries including Peru and Honduras, were killed on Tuesday in the southern state of Chiapas
  • Prosecutors’ office confirmed the identification of the two sisters and said their father was wounded in the shooting, but survived

TAPACHULA, Mexico: An 11-year-old Egyptian girl and her 18-year-old sister were among those killed after Mexican army troops opened fire on a truck carrying migrants earlier this week, an official said Friday.
The sisters, and four other migrants from countries including Peru and Honduras, were killed on Tuesday in the southern state of Chiapas.
An official in the state’s prosecutors office confirmed the identification of the two sisters and said their father was wounded in the shooting, but survived.
Federal officials, including newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum, again refused Friday to confirm the ages or genders of the six migrants killed in the shooting, which occurred on Sheinbaum’s first day in office.
Soldiers claimed they heard shots and returned fire and officials have studiously avoided saying the migrants were killed by army gunfire. However, that appears to be the case, and two soldiers have been relieved of duty and turned over to civilian prosecutors for questioning.
The killings placed in doubt Sheinbaum’s statements over her first days in office that human rights will be at the forefront of her administration’s policies.
Asked about her immigration policy Friday, Sheinbaum said only that the killings were under investigation and doubled down on earlier claims that the government doesn’t violate human rights.
“First of all, human rights are respected,” Sheinbaum said. “That is very important, that is why it is called a humanistic immigration policy, because human rights are at the forefront.”
Three of the dead were from Egypt, and one each from Peru and Honduras. The other has apparently not yet been identified.
Ten other migrants were wounded in the shooting. but there has not been any information on their conditions.
Peru’s foreign ministry confirmed one Peruvian was killed and demanded “an urgent investigation” into the killings. Peru and Mexico have had damaged relations since a 2022 diplomatic spat.
It was the worst killing of migrants by authorities in Mexico since police in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants in 2021.
Sheinbaum has said the shootings are being investigated to see if any commanders might face punishment, and noted “a situation like this cannot be repeated.”
But she left out any mention of that Thursday at a ceremony at a Mexico City army base, where army and navy commanders pledged their loyalty to her in front of massed combat vehicles and hundreds of troops.
“In our country, there is not a state of siege, there are no violations of human rights,” Sheinbaum said, as she promised wage increases for soldiers and sailors.
The shootings Tuesday occurred near the city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala.
The Defense Department initially said that soldiers claimed to have heard shots as a convoy of three trucks passed the soldiers’ position.
The Attorney General’s Office later said all three trucks ignored orders to stop and tried to flee. The soldiers pursued them and reported coming under fire from the convoy, and returned fire.
One of the trucks eventually stopped, the driver reportedly fled, and a total of 33 migrants were found aboard, from the three countries already mentioned, as well as Nepal, Cuba, India and Pakistan.
The Defense Department said four of the migrants were found dead, and 12 wounded. Two of the wounded later died of their injuries. Sheinbaum refused to say whether any weapons were found in the migrants’ truck.
The area is a common route for smuggling migrants, who are often packed into crowded freight trucks. It has also been the scene of drug cartel turf battles, and the department said the trucks “were similar to those used by criminal groups in the region.”
Irineo Mujica, a migrant rights activist, said he doubted the migrants or their smugglers opened fire.
“It is really impossible that these people would have been shooting at the army,” Mujica said. “Most of the time, they get through by paying bribes.”
If the deaths were the result of army fire, as appears likely, it could prove a major embarrassment for Sheinbaum.
The new president has followed the lead of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in giving the armed forces extraordinary powers in law enforcement, state-run companies, airports, trains and construction projects.
It is not the first time Mexican forces have opened fire on vehicles carrying migrants in the area, which is also the object of cartel turf battles.
In 2021, the quasi-military National Guard opened fire on a pickup truck carrying migrants, killing one and wounding four. The Guard officers initially claimed some of those in the migrants’ truck were armed and had fired shots, but the governmental National Human Rights Commission later found that was not true.
And in 2021, state police in Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants and two Mexican citizens. Those officers also initially claimed to have come under fire from the migrants’ vehicles.
They argued they were responding to shots fired and believed they were chasing the vehicles of one of the country’s drug cartels, which frequently participate in migrant smuggling. But that later turned out to be false, and the police in fact burned the victims’ bodies in an attempt to cover up the crime.
Eleven of the policemen were convicted of homicide and sentenced to over 50 years in prison.