View Full Version : Rebel group in Mexico, pipeline sabotage
Mexico Confirms Attacks on Gas Pipelines
By MARK STEVENSON 07.10.07, 5:55 PM ET
Mexico's government said Tuesday that a series of gas pipeline explosions were attacks aimed at weakening the nation's democratic institutions after a small, leftist rebel group claimed responsibility.
The Interior Department said it was stepping up security at "strategic installations" across Mexico after an explosion Tuesday at a pipeline run by the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and two other blasts that rocked gas ducts on Thursday. No one was injured in the blasts.
LINK - Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/10/ap3900955.html)
Mexico Group Claims Responsibility for Pemex Blasts (Update5)
By Patrick Harrington and Thomas Black
July 10 (Bloomberg) -- A Mexican guerrilla group claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on natural gas pipelines owned by Mexico's state oil company, carried out today and last week.
The group, the Popular Revolutionary Army, said the sabotage will continue until President Felipe Calderon and the governor of the state of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, return alive three missing members. Calderon ordered heightened security at Mexico's ``strategic installations,'' presidential spokesman Maximiliano Cortazar said.
LINK - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=agXTVj9LPqxM&refer=news)
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Interesting development?
CPTAUSRET
07-12-2007, 09:59
I am in Mexico City now, I saw a hell of a lot of uniformed security guarding a great many areas of this city while driving around last night.
Thank you for the report, Sir!
Here's another news item.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon has dispatched a new 5,000-strong elite military unit to guard strategic sites, including oil refineries and hydroelectric dams, in the wake of guerrilla attacks on pipelines operated by the national oil and gas company, Pemex, according to news reports Thursday.
Business leaders said as many as 1,000 factories and other businesses in the Guanajuato-Queretaro region of central Mexico have been forced to shut down or reduce operations this week because of fuel shortages caused by attacks this month.
The leftist Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, claimed responsibility for the attacks Tuesday, saying they were in retaliation for the disappearance of two of their militants last year in the southern state of Oaxaca.
The EPR communique said the rebels had bombed three pipelines and a switching station in Queretaro and Guanajuato states. The explosions severed natural gas pipelines and a crude oil pipeline that links storage facilities in the Gulf of Mexico port of Poza Rica to a refinery in Salamanca, in Guanajuato, reducing fuel supplies in the region.
LINK (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pemex13jul13,0,5950315.story?coll=la-home-center)
The Reaper
07-14-2007, 07:00
Looks like drug smuggling might be down for a little while.
TR
Looks like drug smuggling might be down for a little while.
TR
Wish it was true but it is up! They are working overtime compared to the last 2 years down here. They are expanding into what was traditionally Colombian areas. The Mexican Cartels have been making truces to better focus on business instead of killing each other.
The Reaper
07-14-2007, 23:00
Wish it was true but it is up! They are working overtime compared to the last 2 years down here. They are expanding into what was traditionally Colombian areas. The Mexican Cartels have been making truces to better focus on business instead of killing each other.
My thought was that if the military is involved in smuggling, and they have to pull security on the piepline, they might not be there to secure the loads, and we might get less smuggling under Mex military protection.
Just a hope.:rolleyes:
TR
This came out today (July 18th). Matters seem more and more odd - I've added emphasis to some sections.
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Violence in Mexico could threaten U.S. oil imports
Recent bombings of Mexico's energy infrastructure could be the sign of more attacks to come -- which would directly impact the U.S. economy
WASHINGTON -- When saboteurs blew up several natural-gas pipelines in central Mexico this month, temporarily shutting down production for U.S. automakers and other important manufacturers, a small and shadowy Marxist guerrilla group called the Popular Revolutionary Army reportedly claimed responsibility.
Four explosions in the Bajio, a central region that's both the stronghold of the ruling conservative National Action Party and a big manufacturing zone, disrupted the flow of natural gas between Mexico City and Guadalajara, the country's two biggest cities, and paralyzed pipelines in Veracruz and Guanajuato states.
General Motors and Nissan are said to have lost millions of dollars in production at their plants in the region.
Ordinary Americans should have an interest in learning who is behind the attacks and why. Mexico is the second-largest exporter of crude oil to the United States -- more than 1.4 million barrels per day as of April -- and if unknown assailants can blow up a natural-gas pipeline, they could strike as easily at oil. World oil prices are now above $73 a barrel, and further strikes against Mexican energy infrastructure would add to the price jitters.
Mexico is a dangerously soft target since it has more than 17,000 miles of oil pipelines and 8,235 miles of natural-gas pipelines to protect. A McClatchy Newspapers investigation in March demonstrated that Mexico's oil installations can be accessed without authorization.
But as the investigation into the July 5 and July 10 bombings drags on, the mystery only grows.
Among the theories: that the bombings were actually the work of drug cartels striking back at a federal government crackdown, or that the attacks were financed by Venezuela's revolution-minded leftist president, Hugo Chávez, or that they were the work of the radical wing of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which narrowly lost last year's presidential election.
Mexico's guerrilla movements historically have been small in scale and generally amount to a political nuisance, so attacks on pipelines are highly unusual.
''This could be an isolated event or it could be the start of a campaign. We just don't know,'' said Raul Benitez, a professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University who has studied the nation's armed guerrilla movements.
The Mexican government hasn't officially blamed the Popular Revolutionary Army, which is known by its Spanish-language acronym EPR, although major Mexican newspapers reported that the group has claimed responsibility and has demanded the return of two colleagues imprisoned or missing in the southern state of Oaxaca.
The EPR's historical base of operations is hundreds of miles away in the impoverished state of Guerrero, far from the attacks and in a bustling industrial region. Authorities say the bombers used sophisticated European-style plastic explosives, which the EPR has never been known to use.
Marxist rebel groups in Colombia routinely sabotage pipelines, but Mexico has no such similar history. The EPR has been around since the 1960s and isn't known for orchestrated attacks that disrupt industry.
''It's a first time for them,'' said Pamela Starr, a political risk analyst with Eurasia Group and a longtime follower of the murky world of Mexican politics.
In fact, the only time EPR's members were seen in public was in 1996, when they allowed themselves to be photographed with AK-47 rifles while protesting the murder by police of peasants in the town of Aguas Blancas.
LINK (http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/173822.html)
Mexico's Pemex Reports Explosions At Veracruz Pipelines
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
September 10, 2007 8:33 a.m.
MEXICO CITY (AP)--Several explosions ripped apart pipelines in southern Veracruz owned by Mexico's state oil monopoly early Monday, the company said in a statement. There were no injuries.
Officials at Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said they believed the explosions were sabotage.
LINK (May be behind subscription wall (http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20070910-705651.html?mod=moj_industries)
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Also -
Pemex Reports Explosions After Sabotage to Pipelines (Update2)
By Valerie Rota and Thomas Black
Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the country's state-run oil company, said six explosions on pipelines in the eastern state of Veracruz were caused by sabotage.
``It's apparent that these acts are deliberate and orchestrated,'' Fidel Herrera, governor of Veracruz, said in an interview with Mexico-City-based Radio Formula.
Herrera said 12,500 people have been evacuated to shelters.
The company has controlled four fires and is working to reestablish the supply of hydrocarbons, Pemex said today in an e- mailed statement. Pemex hasn't had any reports of injuries from the explosions that took place at 3 a.m. New York time.
LINK to complete article (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4UyH_sota.k&refer=home)
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So, is Mexico in play?