WashTimes:

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...

The rise in assaults comes as the Bush administration 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...

In a letter, Mr. Sensenbrenner asked Mr. Bush to fully fund the authorized increases. The letter was signed by all five House Republican leaders on the intelligence bill: Mr. Sensenbrenner and Reps. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the House International Relations Committee; Duncan Hunter of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, chairman of the House intelligence committee; and David Dreier of California, chairman of the House Rules Committee...