ISIS Camp a Few Miles from Texas, Mexican Authorities Confirm [UPDATED]

ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas, according to Judicial Watch sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector.

The exact location where the terrorist group has established its base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable sources confirm.

During the course of a joint operation last week, Mexican Army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as “plans” of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the US Army’s 1^st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.

Law enforcement and intelligence sources report the area around Anapra is dominated by the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Cartel (“Juárez Cartel”), La Línea (the enforcement arm of the cartel) and the Barrio Azteca (a gang originally formed in the jails of El Paso). Cartel control of the Anapra area make it an extremely dangerous and hostile operating environment for Mexican Army and Federal Police operations.

According to these same sources, “coyotes” engaged in human smuggling – and working for Juárez Cartel – help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed “coyotes” are also smuggling ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.

Mexican intelligence sources report that ISIS intends to exploit the railways and airport facilities in the vicinity of Santa Teresa, NM (a US port-of-entry). The sources also say that ISIS has “spotters” located in the East Potrillo Mountains of New Mexico (largely managed by the Bureau of Land Management) to assist with terrorist border crossing operations. ISIS is conducting reconnaissance of regional universities; the White Sands Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, NM; Ft. Bliss; and the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, NM.

This story originally appeared at:  http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/04/isis-camp-a-few-miles-from-texas-mexican-authorities-confirm/

**UPDATE**

Fox News is reporting that the U.S. State Department is calling these reports “unfounded”.  “The United States and Mexico work together on counterterrorism and border security to protect the citizens of both of our countries from the threat of terrorism and violent extremism,” the US spokesperson said in an email.

PolitiFact is calling this report “Mostly Untrue” but, will not go so far giving it a “False” ruling due to the fact that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Francis Taylor about recent reports of Twitter and Facebook exchanges in which ISIS “urged infiltration” across the U.S.-Mexico border.  “Yes, sir, there have been Twitter, social media exchanges among ISIL adherents across the globe speaking about that as a possibility,” Taylor said, adding: “I’m satisfied that we have the intelligence and the capability at our border that would prevent that activity.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement on Wednesday that there is no “credible information” to confirm the report of an Islamic State camp near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

We will continue updating this story as more information is forthcoming…