Under the veil of darkness in an exclusive video captured by Texas DPS, you can see what cartel members were doing this weekend just across the small Texas island of Fronton, between the U.S. and Mexico in the middle of the Rio Grande.
Fronton is an island that cartels often used to move their goods, but DPS now protects it.
Although many of the explosives seen in Mexico are homemade, the number of those coming from Afghanistan has also gone up. From San Antonio Fox News, Yami Virgin discovered this is nothing new.
The explosives seen are believed to be homemade. They're far from the images that most in Texas are used to seeing when talking about violence in Mexico.
Gun violence used to be the norm, but now, the trend has turned to explosions.
Reports of explosions and mines have gone up, especially just across the border, in the last 18 months. And the way the improvised explosives are built is more like those seen in the Middle East, according to retired Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent In Charge Ari Jimenez.
"They have a pipe with a round base. And then the top, instead of using the regular cap that we've seen in the past, it is more like conical, like a triangle with a point," Jimenez said. "It's intended to make maximum damage.”
Though Jimenez says the type of weapons they are finding have evolved.
“In an act that we have not seen before here, with improvised explosives, seven explosives were detonated killing six and injuring 12,” said Enrique Alfaro, Governor of Jalisco, Mexico.
After the United States' quick departure in August 2021, The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a U.S. government entity, estimated that the United States left behind about $7 billion of new equipment in Afghanistan—which appears to be backfiring on America today.
There's also an additional $18 billion of equipment we gave the Afghan National Army, the entity reports state.
"We have seen some of the ground munitions, and those are the ones that initially we saw them crossing the borders of Pakistan in India," Jimenez said. "We saw them in that area and or fighting them, and we saw them deployed in Yemen.”
Reporter Yami Virgin asked how the cartels eventually made contact with Afghanis to buy the weapons and Jimenez replied, "Many of these arms dealers are taking data equipment and smuggling. Just like we see the smuggling of precursors for fentanyl from China. We have seen the smuggling of weapons, in merchandise in containers from China, from other parts the of the world, to Mexico. And this is how they're bringing all this armament back [into] our backyard.”
Keeping these explosives and weapons out of the U.S. is also of concern, says Jimenez.
"Unfortunately, we're sitting in a moment in time where we do have an open border. We have a mess in the border. 80% of the Border Patrol agents are tasked with administrative jobs. So when we used to have 50 border patrol agents in an area holding the line, now, you don't have 50. Now you might have 10, and 40 are back in the office work and administrators job,” Jimenez said.
While some of the illegal immigrants crossing and asking for asylum come looking for a better life, it is those who are found on the watchlist and are “gotaways” who are of concern, officials say.
DPS states they must help protect the border, and the images of Fronton Island are an example of why: "It's a very dangerous area where these cartels are operating on both sides." said DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez. "And that's why it was so important for us to gain full control.”
'We have to realize that we're about to have a war crossing our border. We'll talk about the last 10 years, the war with the cartels in Mexico, and how many people die every year in that war. And many times, every politician from Washington will tell you, 'oh the border is secure.' And what is it going to take?
"Is it going to take for them to finally cross over and continue killing people and using explosives in this side of the border? That's the question.” Jimenez said.
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