MEXICO CITY, May 12 (Reuters) – Mexican authorities and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency rejected on Tuesday a NCS information story reporting that CIA operatives have immediately participated in deadly assaults on cartel targets in Mexico over the final 12 months.
The NCS story, revealed earlier on Tuesday and citing nameless sources, mentioned the CIA has ramped up its covert operations in Mexico by way of the company’s elite Ground Branch unit. This exercise contains immediately collaborating in focused assassinations, NCS reported.
“The Mexican government categorically rejects any versions (of events) that seek to normalize, justify or suggest the existence of lethal, covert or unilateral operations by foreign agencies on Mexican soil,” Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch mentioned on X.
The CIA, by way of a publish on X from spokesperson Liz Lyons, mentioned of the NCS story: “This is false and salacious reporting that serves as nothing more than a PR campaign for the cartels and puts American lives at risk.”
The presence of CIA operatives in Mexico has strained the bilateral relationship in current weeks.
On April 19, two U.S. officers died in a automotive accident within the northern state of Chihuahua after coming back from a Mexican safety operation to dismantle a drug lab. Three sources advised Reuters the officers had been CIA officers.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has mentioned the federal authorities was not conscious the U.S. officers had been concerned within the operation, and has advised the U.S. that unauthorized participation of U.S. officers shouldn’t be repeated.
The presence of U.S. personnel in anti-cartel operations is a deeply delicate matter in Mexico. Sheinbaum has lengthy maintained that she welcomes intelligence sharing and safety cooperation however is not going to settle for U.S. brokers or forces collaborating in operations on Mexican territory.
In distinction, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to as for higher use of U.S. army drive to fight Mexican cartels, and has threatened that the U.S. might go it alone if Washington feels Mexico is not doing sufficient.
(Reporting by Diego Ore; writing by Laura Gottesdiener; enhancing by Stephen Eisenhammer)