NORTHERN MEXICO BORDER EXPLODES, SCORES DEAD; VELA TO BRING MOTHER OF DEAD SIBLINGS TO TESTIFY BEFORE DHS

By Juan Montoya
Matamoros, Reynosa, Rio Bravo and Valle Hermoso have virtually shut down as armed groups engage in firefights, trucks blockade main roads in and out of the cities and the body count continues rising.
This morning some streets remain blocked to pedestrian and vehicle traffic in both cities.
Overnight, social media reported at least 19 dead in Matamoros, including civilians caught in the crossfire, another 18 in Reynosa and 111 in Valle Hermoso.
The U.S. Consulate in Matamoros issued a warning to its employees not to venture out into the streets of the city because of the ongoing gun battles that were erupting all over the city's main thoroughfare to Reynosa and and in two specific neighborhoods.
All night long, there was a stream of people crossing the international bridges from Matamoros and Reynosa to the American side.
A woman with relatives in Brownsville said she had gotten caught up in a gun battle between Mexican Marines and armed men and had narrowly escaped being shot, but that her car had gotten two rifle impacts.
"I thought I wasn't going to see my family again," she texted on a social media page.
Matamoros mayor Leticia Salazar urged people to stay off the streets and assured everyone that coordinated government forces were on the scene. She urged calm.
However, the mayor announced that families that live along Estacion Ramirez and El Poblado should are in a situation of risk due to outbursts of violence. "Please take all necessary precautions and not venture out unnecessarily, all federal security are working in a coordinated manner to reestablish order and security to the citizens of this city."
However, the city's website also announced that "The municipal government of Matamoros informed that due to the situation of risk that exists in the city and as a measure to protect the citizens, the program ' Wednesday Citizen ' will not take place this 4 February 2015, but until further notice."

And sources close to U.S. Representative Filemon Vela Jr. indicate that he will have the mother of three siblings killed by an unknown armed group after being taken into custody by the Hercules paramilitary group formed by Salazar ans her Social Development Director Luis Biasi will testify in hearings of the Homeland Security Commission in Washington.
Biasi was recently released on a multimillion peso bond on charges of money laundering. The siblings' vehicles were found in an impound lot he owns.
Vela has invited Raquel Alvarado, the mother of Erica Salinas Alvarado, Alex Alvarado, and Jose Angel Alvarado, to tell Congress about the violence that has killed at least another 85 U.S. citizens in northern Mexico. None of those deaths have been cleared.
"The siblings were abducted on October 13 by armed men," Vela wrote in the Congressional Record. "Their burned bodies were found on October 29 in a field in northern Mexico. I call on the U.S. State Dept. to ensure that the Mexican Government thoroughly investigate these heinous crimes and that those responsible be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These cold-blooded murders demonstrate the brutal violence in northern Mexico."