Mexico’s Cartel Decapitation Strike Fallout: “Not The End, Just The Beginning”

Mexico’s Cartel Decapitation Strike Fallout: “Not The End, Just The Beginning”

   February 23, 2026  Leave a Comment on Mexico’s Cartel Decapitation Strike Fallout: “Not The End, Just The Beginning”  Posted in Imported News, Zerohedge

Mexico’s Cartel Decapitation Strike Fallout: “Not The End, Just The Beginning”

Mexican journalist Luis Cárdenas, listed as a journalist at MVS Noticias and a contributor to El Universal and El Heraldo de México, spoke with security analyst Oscar Balmen about the Mexican Army Special Forces’ decapitation strike against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) by killing Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes.

Balmen explained to Cárdenas that CJNG “is designed to survive without El Mencho.”

Cárdenas listed key takeaways from his discussion:

  • The fall of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes does not mean the end of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel: it is a transnational criminal structure with a franchise model and regional autonomy.

  • The more than 250 blockades after the operation were not aimed at rescuing him, but were a “criminal résumé”: plaza bosses flexing muscle to dispute the leadership.

  • The risk is not immediate, warns Balmen: the rearrangement can take weeks or months to explode, as happened after the capture of Ismael Zambada García; an internal struggle is coming that could fragment or pulverize the cartel.

Earlier, Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, Ricardo Trevilla, revealed new details at a press conference about the Mexican Army Special Forces raid to capture El Mencho. He said, “El Mencho was captured in a cabin area near his hideout.” However, El Mencho later died in a firefight with the military.

Trevilla offered condolences to the families of military members who lost their lives in the mission to decapitate CJNG.

He acknowledged that the operation against El Mencho can be viewed from “different perspectives,” but he said the Mexican Army has completed its mission.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also spoke at the press conference, praising the military for the arrest of El Mencho.

“The government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum knew that the ‘elimination’ of El Mencho would trigger a massive terrorist reaction,” research analyst Miguel Alfonso Meza of Defensorxs wrote on X.

Meza continued:

One day after the assassination of El Mencho, the repercussions are:

  • Collective trauma in the population and hundreds of deadly and economic victims.

  • A predictable internal dispute within the CJNG and the prolonged bleeding it will cause.

  • The elimination of El Mencho as a potential witness to point out all the politicians and businessmen who protected him, as well as a source of information to dismantle his cartel.

  • The establishment of a de facto (military) state of exception in several regions of the country.

  • The international perception that Mexico is at war and incapable of guaranteeing security against the cartels, just over 3 months before the World Cup.

  • And fuel for Trump’s interventionist discourse (even though the operation was joint, Mexico will pay the political cost).

Was there any alternative? Yes. There were far better alternatives.

  1. Arresting the most important witness in history instead of assassinating him.

If what matters is dismantling organized crime and its political complicities, El Mencho was one of the most valuable pieces to achieve it. By killing him, they eliminated one of the most important sources of information and, with that, covered up for hundreds of accomplices. They also lost the opportunity to obtain information about how the CJNG operates in order to use it to combat it.

  1. Dismantling the CJNG instead of beheading it.

Despite the fact that Mexico and the US know perfectly well that the logic of beheading cartels has failed because it has only increased chaos and violence, they continue to apply it to the letter. And they don’t do it for strategic reasons, but for political banality: they want to hang the medal of eliminating a big capo. That medal does nothing to help the population. The death of El Mencho is not the death of the CJNG. That organization maintains the same resources and territorial control yesterday and today. That organization is the one that uses terror to control territory. That organization is still alive and strong: so much so that it can activate simultaneous attacks in 20 states. Now, what they have achieved is for the CJNG to shift to its most violent version and experiment with systematic terrorism applied as retaliation against the State and the population. Instead of cutting off one head of the hydra, they should have dismantled and financially and structurally strangled the Jalisco Cartel. They should have weakened and reduced it in order to capture its leader in a controllable scenario, not in one where the authorities are clearly incapable of containing the spread of terror.

  1. Inhibiting terrorism and protecting the population.

The government of @Claudiashein was clearly incapable and negligent in the face of the CJNG’s terrorist reaction. The attacks did not just spread throughout the country: their government kept us in an information blackout and left us abandoned.

Meza warned:

The assassination of El Mencho marks the rest of @Claudiashein’s government: a president who decided to expose millions of Mexicans to unleashed terrorism. However, this is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning.

What could come next are spillover risks to the US.

Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, has warned… 

In a viral post, X user Anonymous Hispano cited a 4chan post from “LONG LIVE EL MENCHO” warning of a “Mexican Civil War,” claiming the cartel is enraged and has entered “insurgency mode,” starting with a takeover of Jalisco and preparing “inevitable” actions on US soil.

Meanwhile…

Even before Mexico’s decapitation strike on CJNG, the US military, special operations, and intelligence agencies had been posturing for a cartel fight, expanding intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions from spy aircraft to drones, and bolstering border and Caribbean forces. We suspect the National Guard deployments in certain US cities were a national security precaution rather than the headline story of cleaning up violent crime in Democratic-run cities. 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/23/2026 – 15:45ZeroHedge News​Read More

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