Mexican drug war 'alarming' U.S. officials

MEXICO CITY – Virtually every day now there are disturbing headlines here about the assassination of yet another Mexican official, gangland-style shootouts in broad daylight, the gruesome discoveries of kidnapped and tortured murder victims – many of them beheaded – and police chiefs quitting their jobs and fleeing the country in terror.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon vowed a year and a half ago to confront the drug cartels and take back vast areas of the country that these powerful criminals have controlled for years, more than 4,000 people have been killed. The murder victims include some 500 police officers, soldiers, mayors and other officials.

As the government pushes into cartel territory, the traffickers fight back while at the same time killing each other in internal battles over the remaining turf and smuggling routes – most of this occurring just south of the U.S. border.

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[edit on 25-11-2008 by Gemwolf]

These Mexican drug lords are like most other drug lords, vicious as a rabis pitbull. They would kill family members for not doing business for them. And officials who won't take bribes to look the other way or take their anti-drug campaigns seriously are routinely targeted for assassination. They have even gotten so far as to try bribing law enforcement agents on the U.S. side of the border to let their drugs get through to this country. And the things they do to get "mules" to bring the stuff across the border. They kidnap family members and won't release that family member until the "mule" takes the drugs across the border, then blackmail him to keep on doing it afterwards.

So end the prohibition and all these problems go away.............Its that easy.

War on the border

TIJUANA, Mexico — Tijuana's police chief was fired Monday following three days of violence that left 37 people dead in this border city plagued by warring drug gangs, including nine men found decapitated and four children caught in shootouts.

Tijuana Public Safety Secretary Alberto Capella has been replaced by his second-in-command, army Cmdr. Julian Leyzaola, according to statement from the office of Mayor Jorge Ramos.

No reason was given for Capella's abrupt dismissal, although it followed a particularly bloody weekend in the city across the border from San Diego.

Three police officers were among the nine decapitated men, whose bodies and heads were discovered Sunday in a poor Tijuana neighborhood, said Baja California state Attorney General Rommel Moreno. Their police credentials were stuffed in their mouths.

More than 200 people have been killed in the past month in Tijuana, where officials say rival cells of the Arellano-Felix drug cartel have been waging a bloody battle.

Capella had promised to work to restore public trust in Tijuana's police force, insisting that corrupt or abusive officers were being prosecuted.

Officers in the city are so mistrusted that the army once invited citizens to report crimes to soldiers instead of to police. For a time last year, federal authorities took guns away from the city police.

Police were investigating whether some of the 37 deaths between Saturday and Monday were part of a retaliatory spree sparked by the killing of a 25-year-old woman believed to be a drug trafficker's girlfriend, said Baja California state Attorney General Rommel Moreno.

He said interviews with families members indicated that 80 percent of the victims had been involved in drug dealing.

But four of the dead were children.

Two brothers, aged 4 and 13, had been waiting for their parents outside a convenience store when gunmen opened fire, killing the boys and several adults. A 14-year-old boy working at locksmith's kiosk was shot dead in an attack on a neighboring business. And a 12-year-old was killed when the car he was riding was sprayed with bullets.

Violence has soared in Mexico as drug cartels compete for smuggling routes and battle government forces.

In the northwestern state of Sonora, a 15-year-old boy was found shot to death under a tree. Police named no suspects or motive.

In southern Michoacan state, gunmen burst into the offices of a local cattle ranchers' association and killed one of its directors, a 27-year-old woman. Police arrested two suspects but gave no possible motive.

Mexican newspapers have reported that more than 4,000 people have been killed across the country this year in drug-related violence.

The federal government does not regularly release homicide figures, although officials have acknowledged that killings have surged in the last two years.

Since taking office in 2006, President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 20,000 soldiers across the country to root out cartels, a crackdown that is popular among many Mexicans.