Guzman's Arrest Greeted with Caution
The high-profile capture of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the leader of Mexico's ruthless Sinaloa drug cartel, should not stoke immediate fears of unrest on Texas' southern border, analysts said Saturday.
But they cautioned that only time will tell if Guzmán’s arrest means that the rival Juárez Cartel will try to retake the Ciudad Juárez turf it lost in 2008, when the Sinaloa swept in and turned the drug shipment region that touches Mexico's border with El Paso into a killing field. The drug war there has claimed more than 10,000 lives since then.
Guzmán, one of the most wanted men in Mexico, who was also sought by U.S. authorities, was captured early Saturday morning in Mazatlán. His arrest comes nearly 13 years after escaping from the Puente Grande prison in the Mexican state of Jalisco. The capture occurred at 6:40 in the morning and was confirmed Saturday afternoon by Lic. Jesús Murrillo Karam, the Mexican attorney general, who said the government was 100 percent certain that the man they would soon parade in front of cameras was Guzmán.
Howard Campbell, author of the book Drug War Zone and an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who specializes in drug trafficking and border culture, said Guzmán’s capture, though significant, should not dramatically alter life in Juárez. Guzmán is said to have controlled the drug shipment region that includes the Mexican state of Chihuahua and runs northward into the United States since the years-long war with his former allies in the Juárez cartel.
More at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/02/22/guzmans-arrest-greeted-caution-skepticism/ .
