WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Violence among the Mexican drug cartels has spilled into the United States, but has been restricted to drug players, federal agents said,
However, one told CNN it was only a matter of time before innocent people get caught in the cartels' crosshairs.
"It's coming. I guarantee, it's coming," Michael Sanders, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in Washington told CNN in an interview published Monday.
Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin Guzman in Mexico has issued shoot-to-kill instructions to his associates to protect the cartel's drug loads along contested drug trafficking corridors in Mexico, the Los Angeles Times reported. But the orders aren't limited to Mexican officials and cartel rivals, they also include U.S. law enforcement personnel. This is a departure from the time when cartels generally tried to avoid direct confrontation with U.S. agents.
The State Department has had a $5 million bounty on Guzman's head for five years, calling him a threat to U.S. security.
U.S. and Mexican officials are trying to stop the violence from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. The Obama administration has committed to spending $700 million to help Mexico fight the cartels and has agreed to double the number of U.S. agents working the border.
