Mexico City in flames: "Alamo" gang defiant

MEXICO CITY, July 12 (Faux News Services) -- Mexico City is under renewed aerial bombardment today, as the "Alamo" gang continues its offensive against the US today, raining sticks of dynamite over the US-Mexico border. The Mexican death toll now stands at 60, including a number of children.

US warplanes dropped leaflets over large areas of Mexico, warning people to stay away from known Alamista strongholds. "I would, if someone would tell me where the hell they were," said one Mexican in La Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico City that has been virtually obliterated in the bombing.

Meanwhile, President-elect Felipe Calderon, from a bunker in an undisclosed location, expressed frustration. "I've been stuck in here since the election," he said. "First it's half of Mexico, now it's the US. I thought they were our friends. What am I supposed to do? I can't even control my own kids, let alone the Alamistas."

The whereabouts of two Americans kidnapped by the gang last week are still unknown, although State Department officials believe they are now in Cuba. Meanwhile President Bush has threatened a blockade of Venezuela. "Chavéz is in this up to his eyeballs," said one State Department official.

A wider war, according to top military analysts, is now a looming possibility. But, while some world leaders have called upon the US to show "restraint," Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada remains a strong supporter of the US offensive. "The terrorists kidnapped two Americans," he said. "The US is reeling. Now is not the time for loyal friends and allies to question this measured response."

Backgrounder: The "Alamo" gang, in fact a loose confederation of Mexican youth gangs that want the return of Texas to Mexico, has been responsible for tossing sticks of dynamite at border patrols and into US-Mexico border towns. Until the current conflict, only a few light injuries had been reported, in El Paso. Pressure has been exerted on the Mexican government before this, but its often corrupt federales have been of little or no use. Mexican government requests to the US for assistance to build its military have been rebuffed because of Mexico's support of the Rome Statute: like Israel, the US is of the view that its citizens should be exempt from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Experts now believe that Cuba is behind the renewed tension on the US-Mexican border. Its President, Fidel Castro, has publicly criticized the US and is considered to be the force behind Venezuelan Hugo Chavéz, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Argentinian President Néstor Kirchner, Ecuadorian President Alfredo Palacio and numerous other South American leaders, as well as unions seeking to organize maquiladora workers in Mexico itself. Rumours of a Cuban nuclear program, as yet unsubstantiated, have poured further oil on the flames.

"Islamofascism must be stopped in its tracks," said a worried President George W. Bush today. "The dominoes are falling, and the time is now."

(--Faux News staff, with files from the Jerusalem Post and the Globe & Mail)