Brietbart | As left-of-center voices call for even less border security, a chilling report from U.S. law enforcement reveals an alleged Mexican cartel member claims he killed 30 individuals on U.S. soil. The confessed killer, Jose Manuel Martinez, is originally from Mexico but has legal status in the U.S. according to Fox News Latino. He was arrested in Arizona but later extradited to Alabama for his crimes there. U.S. law enforcement has confirmed 11 of the murders on U.S. soil that were carried out for an unidentified Mexican cartel.

Reuters | NATO said it had drawn up plans to defend Turkey if necessary should the war in Syria spill over their border again as dozens of people were killed across the Arab nation on Tuesday. Fighting between Syrian rebels and government forces could be heard from this Turkish border town following on from several days of clashes in the past week. One Syrian villager said a rebel push on the town of Azmarin was expected soon.

KVOA | A Border Patrol agent was shot to death Tuesday in Arizona near the U.S.-Mexico line, the first fatal shooting of an agent since a deadly 2010 firefight with Mexican bandits that spawned congressional probes of a botched government gun-smuggling investigation.The agent and a colleague were on patrol in the desert near Naco, Ariz., about 100 miles from Tucson, when shooting broke out shortly before 2 a.m., the Border Patrol said. The second agent was shot in the ankle and buttocks, and was airlifted to a hospital.

SPCR.org | The Department of Homeland Security has taken to the high skies for its latest high-tech border security program. The Fronteras Desk reports that it has retooled the unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone, an established military weapon. The drone has been turned into a new civilian, eyes-in-the-sky border protection instrument.

CBC | Move follows concerns from privacy commissioner over CBSA monitoring plan. Canada's public safety minister has ordered the Canada Border Services Agency to halt audio monitoring of travellers until a privacy assessment can be completed. The announcement follows concerns from the federal privacy commissioner's office about reports that the CBSA had installed cameras and microphones at the Macdonald-Cartier airport in Ottawa to watch and eavesdrop on travellers.

Examiner | Due to the serious threat this family believes they now face, they have only agreed to speak to this reporter through an intermediary who is known to me and trusted. The family does not wish to reveal their name at this time but feels that speaking-out may provide them with their only defense at this point.

WT | Five illegal immigrants armed with at least two AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole known as Mesquite Seep just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and one U.S. agent was killed, records show.

CBC | More than a dozen Canadians have told the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office in Toronto within the past year that they were blocked from entering the United States after their records of mental illness were shared with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Lois Kamenitz, 65, of Toronto contacted the office last fall, after U.S. customs officials at Pearson International Airport prevented her from boarding a flight to Los Angeles on the basis of her suicide attempt four years earlier.

NYT | The Obama administration has expanded its role in Mexico’s fight against organized crime by allowing the Mexican police to stage cross-border drug raids from inside the United States, according to senior administration and military officials. Mexican commandos have discreetly traveled to the United States, assembled at designated areas and dispatched helicopter missions back across the border aimed at suspected drug traffickers. The Drug Enforcement Administration provides logistical support on the American side of the border, officials said, arranging staging areas and sharing intelligence that helps guide Mexico’s decisions about targets and tactics.

Guardian | Police officers secure the area where a body has been dumped on the street in Acapulco, Mexico. On Sunday thousands of Mexicans marched in the capital, Mexico City, to demand an end to the "war on drug trafficking" launched by President Felipe Calderón. They view it is an absurd war that has cost 40,000 lives. Similar protests were held across the country.

10News.com | A terrorist organization whose home base is in the Middle East has established another home base across the border in Mexico. "They are recognized by many experts as the 'A' team of Muslim terrorist organizations," a former U.S. intelligence agent told 10News.The former agent, referring to Shi'a Muslim terrorist group Hezbollah, added, "They certainly have had successes in big-ticket bombings."

DeadlineLive.info | Yesterday, the criminal organization known as Los Zetas, managed to outmaneuver the Mexican military and penetrated Gulf Drug Cartel territory. In what appeared to be a carefully planned operation, Los Zetas lured the military outside the border town of Miguel Aleman, Mexico to fight them in rural areas and back roads While the military was pre-occupied trying to catch the criminals outside the border town, several Zeta convoys moved in from the west.

Salon | Producing and distributing illegal drugs is a profitable business, because there will always be a lot of demand and because illegality allows you to charge a great deal of money. That illegality also means that the people who produce and distribute the drugs are generally not responsible corporate citizens. So thanks to our expensive, terribly ineffective and endless war on drugs, lots of people are dying.

Narco News | The Big Clubs in Mexico’s Drug War Aren’t Slipping Through the Gun-Show Loophole. Another series of leaked State Department cables made public this week by WikiLeaks lend credence to investigative reports on gun trafficking and the drug war published by Narco News as far back as 2009. The big battles in the drug war in Mexico are “not being fought with Saturday night specials, hobby rifles and hunting shotguns,” Narco News reported in March 2009, against the grain, at a time when the mainstream media was pushing a narrative that assigned the blame for the rising tide of weapons flowing into Mexico to U.S. gun stores and gun shows.

NYT |  Just over a month after he took charge of the police force in one of the country’s most violent cities, Manuel Farfán, a former brigadier general in the army, died Thursday in a torrent of bullets. Mr. Farfán, 55, had been appointed police chief in Nuevo Laredo, on the Texas border, with great acclaim. He was one of 11 retired military officers appointed in the past year as local chiefs in troubled Tamaulipas State, a recent hot spot of smuggling and battles among rival drug trafficking organizations.