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Drug cartel bloodbath on Mexican border claims 50 lives

by Sanjay Jha | October 6, 2008 at 01:43 am | 190 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Mexican drug cartel have internsified killing in the recent months and the increasing number of civilians are becoming targets.

The killing is part of the gang crime to control Tijuana, a key transit point for drugs trafficked to the United States.Tijuana is the main nerve centre of drug business in Mexcio and intense rivalry between warring gangs have led to massive killing.

The U.S. administration spent millions of dollars in decades to combate trafficking across the border with Baja California without much of result. The Mexican government also has intensified its efforts aimed at the cartel. More then 50 people have been killed in the city in seven days.

Two headless corpses wrapped in blankets, five beaten and bound men asphyxiated in a car, and the mayor of a sizeable town riddled with bullets.Mexico's spiral of drugs-related violence swept on through the weekend, defying the government's biggest ever effort to rein in the cartels.

Much of the latest bloodbath occurred in Tijuana, across the frontier from California, where nearly 50 people - including 12 found next to a primary school - were killed in the past week.

The violence is being blamed on a battle between two factions of the Arrellano Felix cartel, one of which has allied with the Sinaloa cartel led by Mexico's most notorious trafficker, Joaquín Guzmán Loera (known as el Chapo, or Shorty).

On Saturday the mayor of Ixtapan de la Sal, a spa town south-west of Mexico City, died after hooded hitmen shot at his car. Newspapers blamed Sergio Vergara's death on Los Zetas, another of the main gangs in the bewildering assortment of Mexican trafficking organisations fighting each other across the country.

Newspapers claim the drug wars have led to the deaths of about 3,500 so far this year, already a tally 40% up on 2007's record total. A military-led anti-cartel offensive began in December 2006. The crackdown of Mexico's president, Felipe Calderón, was very popular to begin with, but a poll published in El Universal newspaper on Friday showed that 40% of Mexicans now feel less secure, with only 25% thinking themselves safer. About half in the poll believed things would calm down in the next three years if the fight-back continued. Calderón has repeatedly backed the strategy. "We need to rescue our liberty and our security so our young people can develop to their full potential," he said on Friday. "We will continue our frontal battle against organised crime."

Attacks have flared up in various areas for a few months, then moved on. Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua state, over the Texas border, has been the worst affected this year, with about 1,000 people killed.

Until last week, Tijuana had been fairly calm since a bout of shootouts in the spring. But few areas remain untouched. Even the tranquil reputation of Merida was shattered in August when 12 decapitated bodies were found. Most of the victims were gang members, with about 10% belonging to the security forces, often assumed to have links with traffickers.