Large Blast In Mexico City Tourist Area - Bomb - One Dead

UPDATE 3-Bomb kills one, wounds two in Mexico City
Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:20pm EST
(Adds fresh quotes, details)

By Armando Tovar and Cyntia Barrera Diaz

MEXICO CITY, Feb 15 (Reuters) - A bomb exploded on a street in central Mexico City near the security ministry on Friday, killing one person and wounding two.

No group claimed responsibility for the blast and there was no warning. The Mexican government is locked in a violent battle with drug gangs and has yet to catch left-wing rebels who planted small bombs at oil installations last year.

Police were checking phone warnings that came in after the blast of other possible explosives left in nearby streets, Mexico City police chief Joel Ortega told Reuters.

Hundreds of officers in riot gear blocked roads around the bomb site and evacuated nearby buildings as police helicopters hovered overhead. Windows of buildings and parked cars were blown out and a large advertising awning was destroyed.

"We still have no message nor do we have the identity of these people," Ortega said of the perpetrators. "We are being cautious with the analysis of the materials we found. It is probably gunpowder."

Ortega said the dead man had severe abdominal wounds and his hand was blown off, suggesting he may have been carrying the device when it went off.

A woman was severely burned and a young man wounded in the blast near the ministry building, a couple of blocks from the capital's busy Reforma boulevard and near the bustling Zona Rosa district that is popular with tourists.

"We don't know if it was in one of their hands or whether they moved something," Ortega told Mexican radio.

Ortega said it was unclear whether the device was left in a car or on the street. Another city police official on the ground said the blast could have been caused by a grenade.

"I was working here one block down when I heard a really strong blast that shook everything," said Alfredo, a young man cleaning car windshields on a street corner.

Bomb squads were checking other cars in the street.

President Felipe Calderon has deployed the army in a year-old battle with Mexico's powerful drug cartels. Police have made several arrests in the capital and seized suspected gang members found with large arsenals of guns and grenades.

Mexico is not home to any major terrorist groups but it was hit last year by a series of bomb attacks by a small left-wing guerrilla group on oil installations that caused no deaths.

The Marxist-inspired Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, had lain dormant for several years until it reemerged last year, badly hurting Mexican industry with two sets of bomb attacks on natural gas and fuel pipelines. (Additional reporting by Anahi Rama, Miguel Angel Gutierrez, Chris Aspin and Carlos Pacheco; Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Reuters:

Bomb kills one and wounds two in Mexico City

By Armando Tovar and Cyntia Barrera Diaz
February 15, 2008

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A bomb exploded on a street in central Mexico City near the security ministry on Friday, killing one person and wounding two.

No group claimed responsibility for the blast and there was no warning. The Mexican government is locked in a violent battle with drug gangs and has yet to catch left-wing rebels who planted small bombs at oil installations last year.

Police were checking phone warnings that came in after the blast of other possible explosives left in nearby streets, Mexico City police chief Joel Ortega told Reuters.

Hundreds of officers in riot gear blocked roads around the bomb site and evacuated nearby buildings as police helicopters hovered overhead. Windows of buildings and parked cars were blown out and a large advertising awning was destroyed.

"We still have no message nor do we have the identity of these people," Ortega said of the perpetrators. "We are being cautious with the analysis of the materials we found. It is probably gunpowder."

Ortega said the dead man had severe abdominal wounds and his hand was blown off, suggesting he may have been carrying the device when it went off.

A woman was severely burned and a young man wounded in the blast near the ministry building, a couple of blocks from the capital's busy Reforma boulevard and near the bustling Zona Rosa district that is popular with tourists.

"We don't know if it was in one of their hands or whether they moved something," Ortega told Mexican radio.

Ortega said it was unclear whether the device was left in a car or on the street. Another city police official on the ground said the blast could have been caused by a grenade.

"I was working here one block down when I heard a really strong blast that shook everything," said Alfredo, a young man cleaning car windshields on a street corner.

Bomb squads were checking other cars in the street.

President Felipe Calderon has deployed the army in a year-old battle with Mexico's powerful drug cartels. Police have made several arrests in the capital and seized suspected gang members found with large arsenals of guns and grenades............



Full Reuters story from Boston Globe

oooohhh.....

Aaach. Sorry to hear this. Very sorry.









Beside the point of course, but I still have my book on Cuevas by Fuentes that I bought in a zona rosa book store..

I don't know if it qualifies as "large". But one person is dead, and this hadn't happened in a long long time (actually, I can't remember when).
"Near Zona Rosa" means walking distance from that tourist area. Not "in Tourist Area".

So far, it seems that a red package was on the sidewalk, a guy picked it up and it exploded on him. The wounded woman was with him.
It's very strange. Was the guy supposed to pick the package?

A bomb search was done at the Chamber of Deputies... I don't know if it's just paranoia or something may be cooking.

A press conference should be held at this moment.

The woman is dead, too.

The reporter tells me there are some reports that she was from Tepito, a tough city neighborhood, with some drug dealing.
But bombs are not the way the traffickers deal with enemies. So far...

I'll keep on reporting... if making the actual paper doesn't interfere much.

Thanks fb

When I first got the alert from BBC news, the source of the blast was unknown. I'm sad to hear it was a bomb, but very relieved it wasn't a repeat of the huge gas line explosions of a few years ago that killed so many.

Now the woman is "officially" alive & in intensive therapy (the paramedics said she was dead).

The bomb was homemade, and activated by a cell-phone. The modus operanti was no that of EPR.

As I interpret the officials, they're suspecting "organized crime": that is, drug cartels.
(Hypothesis: perhaps the guy was told to pick a "hot package", he did and Booom!)

-----

(I know you may think we're crazy, but in journalism we thrive and feel exhilarated on this kind of days)

Sure better that that horrible tragedy.
But it wasn't "a few years" ago: 19th November 1983.

From my father's families, we probably have Otomi blood (and Nahua as well), since both families had (one still does) haciendas bordering the states of Hidalgo and Veracruz.

So, has anyone claimed responsibility for the bombing yet?

Infablue, Huasteco nahuatl, eh? From the border of Hidalgo and Veracruz.
Otomi indians come from Hidalgo and the State of Mexico.


No one has claimed the bombings.

The woman was neighbor of a drug operator captured last week. He had been host of big dealers from the Sinaloa cartel, and they caught them all.

She's a prime suspect now. Since the blast was only two blocks away from the central city police offices, they probably were going to "plant" it there. But this is mere speculation.
The fact that the victim carried no papers feeds the speculation. Now they're saying he was a member of the Sinaloa cartel.

Does anyone know the actual street location where the blast took place?
Thanks
Miguel

I was thinking of trying to map it. Fb would surely be better at that if he has the time...

It was at Avenida Chapultepec, some 50 meters east of the crossing with Avenida Monterrey, Colonia Roma. On the sidewalk.

That's about 300 meters away from the Police Headquarters at the edge of Zona Rosa.

I finally found a map with both Avenida Monterrey and Avenida Chapultepec on it...

Hey, I live near the upper left corner of that map!

(near the corner of Milton & Darwin)


... and I work near the bottom right corner

(right next to the hospital with a big H)

Cool! That took me forever to find. If the map was particular enough to show the Zona Rosa, it would usually only show half of it, or not label all the streets.

I did run into some neat photos of the Colonia Roma and Condesa areas..