Snipers working as "lookouts" for drug traffickers and illegal-alien smugglers are targeting U.S. Border Patrol agents from vantage points across the U.S.-Mexico border.
    Within the past week, agents assigned to the Douglas station in Arizona's southeastern corner — one of the nation's busiest illegal-entry points — have been fired at on at least six occasions, according to federal authorities, and although none of the officers was injured, several reported near-misses.

    One agent's vehicle was hit twice as he moved to avoid gunfire. Another sniper fired both at an agent and at a surveillance camera, which was hit by four bullets but was not seriously damaged.
    Since Oct. 1, agents assigned to the Tucson sector, which includes the border stations at Douglas, Naco and Nogales in the highest alien- and drug-trafficking corridor in the country, have been assaulted 80 times, nine involving shootings. Responsible for a 260-mile section of the Arizona-Mexico border, the Tucson agents are being assaulted at a rate of two every three days in that period, more than doubling last year's total.
"We believe the vast majority of these assaults are directly tied to alien and drug smugglers based in Mexico." said Border Patrol spokesman Andy Adame in Tucson
The rise in assaults comes as the Bush adm.inistration reportedly has decided not to hire the 2,000 new Border Patrol agents that were authorized for each of the next five years in the recently passed intelligence-overhaul bill. Most of them would have been assigned to the Tucson sector.
    Instead, President Bush is expected to seek an increase of only about 200 agents for the new fiscal year, according to law-enforcement authorities and others.................

Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said he was "not surprised" by the funding decision, but was "disappointed."
    "It's equivalent to denying a crime-ridden city more officers for protection. It simply makes no sense," Mr. Tancredo said, adding that the State Department issued a traveler's warning for the northern part of Mexico just last week, citing deteriorating security conditions — including killings and kidnappings — along the U.S.-Mexico border.