Two CIA agents reportedly killed in car crash in Mexican state of Chihuahua

It is unclear if and to what degree US agents were involved in unsanctioned ground operations in Mexico.

The Washington Post, which broke the story, initially indicated that the two agents were engaged in a counternarcotics operation, citing anonymous officials familiar with the matter.

Their car appears to have veered off the road and crashed in a ravine early on Sunday. The identities of the two US officials have yet to be confirmed.

Johnson described the two officials as “embassy personnel”. Media reports, however, have indicated they may have been members of the CIA.

Contradictory statements from authorities in Chihuahua also compounded the confusion about who was involved in the antidrug operation.

On Monday, the state attorney general’s office in Chihuahua issued a statement to insist that “only elements of the State Investigation Agency (AEI) and the Mexican army participated” in the sting.

Chihuahua’s Attorney General Cesar Jauregui Moreno has ruled out “the intervention of foreign elements”, the statement added.

According to state authorities, “instructors from the United States” were in Chihuahua “for other purposes, such as teaching how to handle drones”.

Separately, 40 officers from Chihuahua’s AEI and 40 from Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defence led a two-day operation that resulted in the discovery and seizure of a drug lab in the community of El Pinal, the attorney general’s office said.

The office insists that the Mexican law enforcement agents were simply giving their US counterparts a lift to the airport, nothing more, when the early-morning car crash occurred. The two US officials were expected to catch a flight on Sunday from the city of Chihuahua.

“We are very respectful of the sovereignty of this country and of the non-intervention of agents of any kind that are not nationals, directly in this type of operation,” Jauregui Moreno said in the statement.

Since Trump began his second term, the question of whether he might pursue policies that violate Mexican sovereignty has loomed over cross-border relations.

Last year, he labelled several Mexican cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”, seeming to tee up possible military action.

Privately, in a notice to Congress, Trump has described cartels and other criminal networks as “unlawful combatants” engaged in an “armed conflict” with the US.

To that end, he has carried out a campaign to bomb alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 180 people.

He has also twice attacked Venezuela — once in December and a second time in early January — culminating in the abduction and imprisonment of the country’s then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump and his officials have described the January 3 attack as a law enforcement operation. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores currently await trial on drug trafficking and weapons charges in New York.

Legal experts, however, have described the attack as a violation of international law.

Shortly after Maduro’s removal, Trump renewed his threats that other countries could likewise face attacks on their soil. Mexico was among the targets he floated.

“We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico,” he told Fox News in January. “It’s very sad to watch.”

Sheinbaum has rejected that assertion, while increasing her government’s anti-cartel operations.

In February, for instance, the Mexican military led a high-profile operation that resulted in the shooting death of Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.