Mexico breaks up armed gang's plot to kill 2 congressmen

MEXICO CITY –  Mexican prosecutors said Thursday they have broken up a plot by an armed gang to assassinate two federal legislators in Mexico City.

The plan, had it succeeded, would have marked a rare attack on federal officials, who have largely escaped the drug-fueled violence that has claimed the lives of many state and local officials.

The intended victims are brothers, one a senator and one a congressman, from the north-central state of Zacatecas. Both Sen. David Monreal Avila and Congressman Ricardo Monreal Avila were warned and placed under protection once the plot was uncovered, based on intelligence information.

The armed gang was arrested Thursday at a hotel in downtown Mexico City, Assistant Attorney General Mariana Benitez told reporters. She did not specify how many were detained, what weapons they were carrying or whether they had any ties to drug gangs.

"Early today the raid was successfully carried out without violence, and apart from the individuals arrested ... guns and communication equipment with which they planned to carry out the assassinations were seized," Benitez said.

Describing the detainees' statements to police, Benitez said "they said they were in Mexico City to kill the legislators."

Benitez did not give any possible motive in the failed plot.

The brutal Zetas cartel has been fighting turf battles and engaging in leadership struggles in Zacatecas, a key trafficking route. Both Monreals are members of leftist parties, and Ricardo Monreal served as Zacatecas governor from 1998-2004.

He later served as a key campaign official for former leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in his failed bids for the presidency in 2006 and 2012.

In 2009 army troops acting on a tip raided a chile-drying warehouse owned by another brother, Candido Monreal, and found people loading marijuana onto trucks. More than 11.4 tons of the drug were seized at the plant, near the city of Fresnillo, Zacatecas.

The Monreals said the warehouse had been broken into, and Candido was never charged. Ricardo Monreal told reporters later quoted his brother as saying "the (locks) had been broken, and he reported it to police."

That same year, Ricardo Monreal accused the Zacatecas government of being completely infiltrated by drug traffickers. He resigned from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, which governed Zacatecas at the time, to protest what he called a smear campaign against him.

While state and local police officials, mayors and local prosecutors have often been murdered by drug gangs or rivals in Mexico since 2006, federal officials have seldom been targeted.

A federal congressmen from the southern state of Guerrero was killed in 2011, and prosecutors blamed the killing on a local mayor, who allegedly ordered congressman Moises Villanueva killed because he "got in the way" of the mayor's political plans.

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Police checking report of armed man on University of Arizona campus

Published March 22, 2013

Associated Press

TUCSON, Ariz. –  Police have converged on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson after receiving a report of a man with a gun.

A text alert was sent to students and staff at 5:07 p.m. Friday saying police had received a report of a man with a rifle inside the Administration Building.

Officers from the University of Arizona Police Department are at the scene and students and staff are being told to avoid the area.

Campus police didn't immediately release any information on the search for the reported armed man of if they had found anyone.

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House Armed Services Chair McKeon: Drone program ‘fully within the law’

"We have American citizens that have tried to kill Americans, and I think when they do that, they give up some of their rights," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., told Fox News on Sunday about the United States' drone-strike policy.

The Justice Department and White House last week defended the use of unmanned drones to kill American citizens thought to be involved with Al Qaeda or other terror-related forces.

Congress is also considering creating a special court to oversee the Obama administration's drone-assassination program.

But not all of Congress is on board with the idea of special court.

"I don't think we should hand cuff ourselves when people are trying to kill us. I would rather take them out first before we put our people in jeopardy," McKeon told Fox's "America's News HQ."

It was only 18 months ago when a drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American born Islamic militant.

But Congress was denied access to the legal memos authorizing the strike until this past week, when the issue resurfaced during the confirmation hearing of John Brennan for director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"I never believed it's better to kill a terrorist than to detain them," Brennan said.

McKeon maintains the military is performing the drone strikes as an act of war and doing what is necessary to fight terror.

"We have an attorney standing behind the weapons officer that approves any weapons fired," he said. "So we're fully within the law and functioning. We're at war. And whatever we can do to take out the enemy, I think we should do it."

In Congress, McKeon has worked to establish the Unmanned Systems Caucus, a group on Capitol Hill advocating for drones in the U.S. defense program.

With the sequester deadline less than a month away, McKeon has spoken out on the potential impact that the massive federal spending cuts could have on national security and defense, in addition to the drone program.

"I was stunned at the president's silence on national security risks and I am frustrated that he continues to look to our men and women in uniform to pay the cost of America's debt crisis," he released in a statement. "After all, it is their lives that are at greater risks today, because of the cuts already imposed."

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