Gunmen Attack Mexican Army Housing

(Tampico, Mexico) Here's another example of the wide-open violence in Mexico. Cartel thugs seem to like attacking the Mexican soldiers in their barracks.

Suspected cartel gunmen wounded two soldiers in an unprecedented grenade attack on army housing in northern Mexico, the latest sign that drug gangs are increasingly turning to open warfare tactics against the military.

The gunmen fired the grenade from a rifle at a camp where soldiers live with their families outside the Gulf coast city of Tampico, the Defense Department said in a statement Tuesday. The two wounded soldiers were treated, but none of their relatives was harmed in the attack Monday.

The Defense Department reiterated its stance that cartels are acting out of desperation in the face of army successes in the drug war.

"Members of organized crime staged a cowardly attack with a rifle-fired grenade," the department said. "These types of aggressions demonstrate that the structure of organized crime has been eroded, provoking desperate acts like attacking families of the armed forces."

Soldiers pursued the assailants but only found their abandoned car, with five guns and a grenade inside, the statement said.

Army positions have repeatedly come under attack in recent weeks in the northwestern states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, which border Texas. Cartel gunmen have ambushed military patrols on highways and thrown up street blockades in front of army garrisons.

You know that thugs willing to attack soldiers where they live would have no reservations to attacking tourists in their hotel rooms.