By Diana Washington Valdez
The El Paso Times
Experts with the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are helping Mexican authorities with their investigation of the July 15 car bombing in Juarez that killed three people.
“The FBI sent a small team to the crime scene to consult with our Mexican counterparts and we have offered them technical assistance with the car bombing,” El Paso FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons said Sunday. “We would only be involved if the Mexican government asked for our assistance in some way.”
The ATF is also assisting, said Tom Crowley, a spokesman for the agency in Dallas.
“The ATF is providing Mexican officials with help on the technical aspects of the bomb,” Crowley said. “We have provided post-lab training to Mexican law enforcement in the past. It is the same kind of training we give to state and local police in the United States.
“Post-lab involves reconstructing the device used in the explosion so investigators can determine what it was and where it might have come from.”
Mexican officials attributed last Thursday’s deadly attack to enforcers of the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel. They said the bombing took place because police had arrested Jesus Armando Acosta Guerrero, 35, a lieutenant in the cartel.
Acosta was arrested in Ju?rez last year in connection with the Nov. 4 shooting at the Amadeus club that killed six men, including U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. David Booher of Holloman Air Force Base.
Mexican officials did not say why Acosta was released before his second arrest July 15 before the bombing.
Military officials said a C-4 plastic explosive was used in the car bomb, and apparently was set off remotely with a cell phone.
Car bombs have been used by terrorists and guerrilla groups in the Middle East, Ireland, Spain and Colombia.
The Ju?rez bombing involved an elaborate scheme. Officials said the perpetrators dressed a man in a police uniform and laid him on the ground to lure others to the body.
The explosion occurred right after a paramedic and a federal agent approached the body.
Luis Hernandez, a cameraman for Channel 5 in Ju?rez, was injured in the attack. He filmed the scene before the explosion, and continued running his camera after he was hurt.
The Carrillo Fuentes and Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman cartels have been waging a brutal battle to control the Chihuahua state drug smuggling corridor that’s claimed more than 1,500 lives so far this year.
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