MEXICO CITY: Mexican security forces captured on Thursday drug cartel leader Ovidio Guzman, a son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, ahead of a visit by US President Joe Biden next week.
Coming three years after a failed operation to detain Ovidio ended in humiliation for the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the arrest triggered a wave of violence that forced authorities to shutter airports and schools in the city of Culiacan.
Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval told a news conference security forces had captured the 32-year-old senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel. Ovidio, a fugitive since the previous arrest attempt, was now being held in the capital Mexico City, Sandoval said.
Videos shared on social media, which Reuters was unable to immediately verify, appeared to show heavy fighting overnight in Culiacan, the main city in the northern state of Sinaloa, with the sky lit up by helicopter gunfire.
The Sinaloa state government said two members of the security forces had been killed in the clashes.
The city’s airport was caught up in the violence, with Mexican airline Aeromexico saying one of its planes had been hit by gunfire ahead of a scheduled flight to Mexico City. No one was hurt, it said.
A Mexican air force plane was also shot at, Mexico’s federal aviation agency said, adding that the airport in Culiacan, as well as in the Sinaloa cities of Mazatlan and Los Mochis, would remain closed until security could be ensured.
Ovidio, who has become a key figure in the cartel since the arrest of his father, was briefly detained in 2019 but was quickly released to end violent retribution in Culiacan from his cartel. The incident was an embarrassing setback for the government of Lopez Obrador.
His latest capture comes before a North American leaders’ summit in Mexico City next week, which US President Joe Biden will attend and at which security issues are on the agenda.
The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ovidio.
It not yet clear whether Ovidio will be extradited to the United States like his father, who is serving a life sentence at Colorado’s Supermax, the most secure US federal prison.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said any extradition would have to follow formal processes and would not be immediate.
A surge in overdose deaths in the United States, fueled by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has led to increased pressure on Mexico to combat the organizations — such as the Sinaloa Cartel — responsible for producing and shipping the drug.
The cartel is one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations.
Guzman’s arrest helps save face for Mexican law enforcement following the escape of El Chapo’s son in 2019, said Tomas Guevara, a security expert at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa.
“The detention of Ovidio is finally the culmination of something that was planned three years ago,” he said.
It might also herald a change in approach by the government, Guevara added, after criticism from many security experts that Lopez Obrador was soft on the cartels, an accusation he denies.
The president argues the confrontational tactics of his predecessors were unsuccessful and only caused more bloodshed, saying he would instead pursue a strategy of “hugs not bullets.”
RESIDENTS URGED TO STAY INDOORS
On Thursday morning, security forces were attempting to contain a violent reaction to the arrest in the Culiacan area by Guzman’s associates.
Burned vehicles were scattered on the streets and heavily armed law enforcement patrolled in pickup trucks.
“We continue to work on controlling the situation,” said Cristobal Castaneda, Sinaloa’s public security chief.
Local government urged people to stay indoors and said schools and administrative offices were closed due to the violence. Street blockades had also been erected.
Joaquin Guzman, 65, was convicted in New York in 2019 of trafficking billions of dollars of drugs to the United States and conspiring to murder enemies.
Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia Consulting which analyzes Mexican organized crime, said that recent pressure from the Biden administration to target the Sinaloa Cartel had likely motivated Mexico to go after Guzman.
But he warned that while Ovidio’s capture was likely to weaken that cartel, it could help their main rival, the notoriously violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
“It’s very important the government bear in mind that the weakening of the Sinaloa Cartel may also bring about an even greater expansion, a greater presence of the Jalisco Cartel.”
Mexico captures son of ‘El Chapo,’ sparking wave of violence
https://arab.news/2y5xz
Mexico captures son of ‘El Chapo,’ sparking wave of violence
US, Ukraine officials say they’ll meet for 3rd day after progress on creating a security framework
- Witkoff and Kushner’s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials say they’ll meet for a third day of talks on Saturday after making progress on finding agreement on a security framework for postwar Ukraine.
The two sides also offered the sober assessment that any “real progress toward any agreement” ultimately will depend “on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace.”
The statement from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov came after they met for a second day in Florida on Friday. They offered only broad brushstrokes about the progress they say has been made as Trump pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a US-mediated proposal to end nearly four years of war.
“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” the statement said. “Parties also separately reviewed the future prosperity agenda which aims to support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, joint US–Ukraine economic initiatives, and long-term recovery projects.”
The US and Ukrainian officials also discussed “deterrence capabilities” that Ukraine will need “to sustain a lasting peace.”
Witkoff and Kushner’s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
Friday’s session took place at the the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, a high-end private golf and lifestyle destination owned by Witkoff’s real estate development company.
Previous diplomatic attempts to break the deadlock have come to nothing and the war has continued unabated. Officials largely have kept a lid on how the latest talks are going, though Trump’s initial 28-point plan was leaked.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s delegation in Florida wanted to hear from the US side about the talks at the Kremlin.
Zelensky, as well as European leaders backing him, have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling in peace talks while the Russian army tries to press forward with its invasion. Zelensky said in a video address late Thursday that officials wanted to know “what other pretexts Putin has come up with to drag out the war and to pressure Ukraine.”
Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov praised Kushner as potentially playing an important role in ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ushakov also took part in Tuesday’s talks at the Kremlin.
“If any plan leading to a settlement is put on paper, it will be the pen of Mr. Kushner that will lead the way,” Ushakov said.
The flattering comments about Kushner by the senior Russian official come as Putin has sought to sow division between Trump and Ukraine and Europe at a moment when Trump’s impatience with the conflict is mounting. Putin said his five-hour talks this week with Witkoff and Kushner were “necessary” and “useful,” but some proposals were unacceptable.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was a senior adviser to Trump during his first term and was the president’s point person on developing the Abraham Accords, which formalized commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and a trio of Arab nations.
Kushner has played a more informal role in Trump’s second go-around, but he helped Witkoff close out ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas this fall. Trump tapped Kushner again to pair up with Witkoff to try to find an endgame to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The European take on the peace talks
Ushakov, who accompanied Putin on a visit to India on Friday, repeated the Russian president’s recent criticism of Europe’s stance on the peace talks. Kyiv’s European allies are concerned about possible Russian aggression beyond Ukraine and want a prospective peace deal to include strong security guarantees.
Kyiv’s allies in Europe are “constantly putting forward demands that are unacceptable to Moscow,” Ushakov told Russia’s state-owned Zvezda TV. “Putting it mildly, the Europeans don’t help Washington and Moscow reach a settlement on the Ukrainian issues.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that he made progress during a visit to Beijing on getting Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s support for peace efforts.
“We exchanged deeply and truthfully on all points, and I saw a willingness from the (Chinese) president to contribute to stability and peace,” Macron said.
The French president said he stressed that Ukraine needs guarantees that Russia won’t attack it again if a settlement is reached and that Europe must have a voice in negotiations.
“The unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it, repeat it, emphasize it. We need to work together,” Macron said.
The latest drone attacks
Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery.
The Russian attack on Thursday night in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region destroyed the house where the boy was killed and also two women were injured, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 137 drones of various types during the night.
Ukrainian drones attacked a port and an oil refinery inside Russia overnight as part of Kyiv’s campaign to disrupt Russian logistics, Ukraine’s general staff said.
The drones struck Temriuk sea port in Russia’s Krasnodar region and the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region, starting blazes, a statement said. Syzran is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said only that its air defenses intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
