Elite U.S. Special Forces soldiers arrived in Mexico this week, ostensibly on a mission to train the country’s armed forces.
Representatives of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group and the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) confirmed the cross-border assignment in emailed statements shared with FreeBase News on Feb. 18.
Those officials insisted this cross-border assignment is a part of “routine, pre-planned military training.”
Still, the announcement comes as President Donald Trump has ordered increased U.S. military activity along the U.S. southern border, and has taken other steps to combat cartels and other transnational criminal organizations. In one of his first moves in office, Trump authorized his administration to begin designating cartels and other criminal organizations groups as terrorist groups, raising the prospect of direct U.S. military action against said organizations.
According to documents published by the Mexican Senate’s naval commission, the U.S. troops will be in the country from Feb. 17 to March 28, at the Mexican military base on San Luis Carrizo in the southern Mexican state of Campeche.
For now, information about the deployment of U.S. Special Forces soldiers in Mexico remains limited.
When reached for comment, the 7th Special Forces Group declined to say how many of its personnel would take part in this training activity in Mexico, citing “operational security” concerns. While the group spokesman said this training activity is part of a long-standing relationship with Mexico, he declined to share more details about the partnership.
The U.S. 7th Special Forces Group’s area of responsibility includes Mexico, the Caribbean and other areas of Latin American and South America. This U.S. special operations unit has historically worked with governments in the region, including the Mexican military.
The Mexican Marine Corps has also seen a growing role in counter narcotic and counter cartel operations in recent years, becoming a trusted partner in joint operations involving the two countries. Mexico’s Marines have frequently worked with the U.S. military and U.S. law enforcement agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The Mexican Marine Corps also houses one of the country’s top special mission units, the Fuerzas Especiales naval special operations group.
U.S. special operators routinely deploy to foreign countries under the umbrella of bilateral and multilateral training missions. But, training foreign government forces also provides a useful premise for U.S. special operators to engage in limited combat operations inside a given country.
U.S. Special Forces soldiers had been in Vietnam and Laos for several years, officially as part of a training and military advisory mission, before President Lyndon Johnson authorized large-scale U.S. military operations in 1965, kicking off what’s considered the main course of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Those special operators had closely managed military operations to disrupt Laotian and Vietnamese communist guerillas, and accounts indicate they took part in direct combat operations before the large-scale U.S. war began.
A trusted and competent military component in a host nation, such as the Mexican Marine Corps and the Fuerzas Especiales, could also provide a layer of deniability for U.S. personnel taking part in the ground level operations.
While Mexican Marines officially carried out the February 2014 arrest of accused cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán with intelligence support from the DEA and U.S. Marshals, the Mexican publication Proceso reported allegations in 2015 DEA agents dressed in Mexican Marine uniforms were directly involved in the ground-level arrest operations the year prior.
The Wall Street Journal has reported similar accounts of U.S. federal agents donning the uniforms of Mexican troops in order to lead counter-cartel operations inside Mexico.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
