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From Los Angeles Times

Mexico says leader in kidnapping, killing of 72 migrants arrested

Mexican police say Edgar Huerta Montiel, 22, confessed to leading the capture of two truckloads of undocumented migrants in Tamaulipas state, and the killing of 10 of the victims. He also allegedly told of ordering the kidnapping of six busloads of passengers in San Fernando, Mexico.

by Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

June 18, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City

Mexican authorities on Friday announced the arrest of the man they say directed the kidnappings of 72 Central and South American migrants found slain in northern Mexico last year.

Federal police said Edgar Huerta Montiel, 22, told them he led the capture of two freight trucks packed with undocumented migrants in the state of Tamaulipas, then killed 10 of the victims.

Huerta, described as an army deserter who works for the Zetas drug gang, allegedly told police he also ordered the kidnappings of six busloads of passengers in the rural town of San Fernando.

Captives were taken to safe houses and tortured for information, including whether they were working for the Gulf cartel, a rival gang, said Ramon Eduardo Pequeno, head of the anti-drug division of the federal police.

Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, has seen some of Mexico's worst violence amid fighting between the gangs and the inability of Mexican authorities to establish order.

The bodies of the 72 migrants were found in August on a ranch in San Fernando after one member of the group escaped. In the same area, authorities this spring found graves containing the remains of nearly 200 people believed kidnapped from buses headed toward the border. At least 21 suspects have been arrested in those slayings.

Migrants are frequently seized by gangs hoping to extort money from the victims' loved ones.

Some Mexican news media reported that Huerta had told police that more than 600 victims had been buried in makeshift graves, though authorities did not confirm that.

Huerta and his girlfriend were arrested Thursday in the northern state of Zacatecas.

Authorities said he was a top aide to Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo, an alleged Zetas chief in Tamaulipas known as "Squirrel." The Mexican government has offered a reward of about $1.3 million for information leading to Martinez's capture.

Huerta also allegedly worked with another suspected crime boss, Martin Omar Estrada Luna, who was arrested in April by Mexican marines.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fg-mexico-arrest-20110618,0,4991290,print.story

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Pentagon Bomb Scare: Is the Suspect a Lone-Wolf Terrorist?

An international investigation is under way today to find out whether the Marine Corps Reserve lance corporal who was arrested early Friday morning for carrying suspected bomb making materials near the Pentagon is simply an unstable, misguided young man, or a cold-blooded lone wolf terrorist.

"We don't know what a lone wolf, al Qaeda-inspired operative looks like. We don't know where they hang out, we don't know really what motivates them," former FBI agent Jack Cloonan said. "So when you don't know that, you've got a talent pool of people that is so huge, it stresses law enforcement. We just don't know what they look like and what they want to do."

The United States was lucky in this incident, because police were able to arrest the man in question, 22-year-old Ethiopian-American Yonathan Melaku, who was recently charged with breaking into 27 cars in suburban Washington. But so-called lone wolf terrorists are generally very difficult to catch.

"It gets very close to that whole issue of profiling," Cloonan said. "We don't want to say as law enforcement that we're going to look for every Arab male age 21 to 35. We really can't do that. Profiling is not that effective in this regard."

FBI investigators have been dissecting Melaku's life since his arrest, but as of yet have found no links to terrorist organizations, although he was carrying pro-al Qaeda literature.

"We do believe at this time that this individual acted alone," said Brenda Heck, a special agent in charge of counterterrorism for the FBI.

But while he may have been acting alone, the recent appearance of a "hit list" on a jihadi web site that names 40 prominent figures from government, the U.S. military and the media who should be attacked, has officials concerned about people who might have no formal links to al Qaeda but still be inspired by their rhetoric.

Among the names on the hit list, which includes photographs of the targets and biographical information, are a member of Congress, Pentagon officials, a conservative pundit, executives of an American company involved in the production of drone aircraft, and two prominent French executives.

According to a bulletin circulated by the FBI, the hit list appeared on the website Ansar al-Mujahideen after one poster highlighted Al Qaeda leader Adam Gadahn's call in a June 3 message for lone wolf attacks on American public figures and corporate institutions.

"When al Qaeda ... [puts] a hit list out ... I think that they're trying to issue an open-ended fatwa, a religious order, for people to go act on their own," Cloonan said. "The person who is sitting out there, the lone wolf ... we just don't know. That's what stresses law enforcement ... because we just don't know."

With the anniversary of 9/11 approaching, we can expect to see more of these attacks, according to Cloonan.

"Al Qaeda and other likeminded groups are adapting to what we've done," he said. "We've degraded their leadership, we've degraded their operational capability, they will take what we give them -- the lone wolf, the single operative, is probably the modus operandi they're relying on."

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