The Islamic State (IS) is running a camp in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, just eight miles from the US border, Judicial Watch has said.

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Citing sources that included a "Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector", the watchdog said on Tuesday that the Middle East-based terror group was operating just a few miles away from El Paso, Texas, in the Anapra neighbourhood of Juárez and in Puerto Palomas. It added that the "coyotes" who worked for the notorious Juarez Cartel were smuggling militants across the US border between the New Mexico cities of Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, as well as "through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas".

The watch group said that these areas were targeted by the IS due to their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provided for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already going on.

Mexican intelligence sources said that the terror group intended to exploit the railways and airport facilities in the vicinity of Santa Teresa, New Mexico.