Mexico drug prosecutor shot dead in ambush
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a federal drug prosecutor in this industrial city, the latest in a surge of shootings linked to organized crime in northern Mexico, police said on Tuesday.
Hitmen strafed Miguel Angel Esquivel’s car as he drove through the outskirts of Monterrey, in northeast Mexico, at around midnight on Monday, killing him instantly, the state prosecutor’s office said.
More than 1,000 people, most in northern and western Mexico, have been murdered this year in a brutal battle between rival cartels for control of the cross-border trade with the United States in cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines.
The murder brought to 24 the number of drug-related killings this year in Monterrey, a usually tranquil city some three hours south of the Texas border. There were only 16 such killings in the city in all of last year.
The surge in violence stems from a bloody internal struggle for control of the drug trade among rival cartels from Sinaloa state, and an all-out war with the rival Gulf Cartel for control of lucrative drug routes to Texas.
Source: alertnet.org
AROUND MEXICO
Fox appoints new public safety chief
President Vicente Fox appointed Mexico's former intelligence chief, Eduardo Medina Mora, as secretary of Public Safety, the country's top police post, replacing an official killed last week in a helicopter crash.
Medina Mora, 48, most recently served as head of the top intelligence agency, the Center for National Security and Investigation.
Fox told Medina that his primary responsibility was the battle against organized crime.
Drug prosecutor slain in ambush
MONTERREY - Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a federal drug prosecutor, the latest in a surge of shootings linked to organized crime in northern Mexico, police said Tuesday.
Hitmen
Mexico arrests 17 in wave of killings
Prosecutor says gunmen linked to many of 200 drug deaths near border
Federal authorities said Monday they have arrested a group of 17 gunmen who could be responsible for many of the 200 drug-related killings this year in the state of Tamaulipas that borders Texas.
The men were detained in a house in the Tamaulipas state capital of Victoria after a Sunday morning shootout that left two police officers dead, Mexico's top drug prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, told a news conference.
Police also arrested four women in the house and found an arsenal that included six
Mexico warns of long drug fight, more deaths ahead
Mexico warned on Tuesday of a long fight against drug traffickers and more deaths among security forces after two police chiefs were shot dead near Texas.
A spokesman for President Vicente Fox said the fatal shootings on Monday would not deter the government in its "frontal attack against organized crime."
More than 1,000 people died last year as gangs battled for control of lucrative smuggling routes to Texas from northeast Mexico, many in Nuevo Laredo across from Laredo, Texas.
"The Mexican state will emerge victorious, but there will still be a long period of conflict
Four police dead in shootout in Mexico border city
Suspected drug hit men on Tuesday killed four policemen in a shootout in this crime-ridden Mexican city on the U.S. border, police and witnesses said.
One of the dead was the second-in-charge of a state police force sent to Nuevo Laredo last year by President Vicente Fox's government to help end a drug feud, the sources said.
The killings took place in broad daylight on a busy highway leading to the airport in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.
The policemen and their attackers fought for 15 minutes in a shootout that
Mexico police storm steel plant, 2 shot dead
Hundreds of Mexican police stormed a major steel plant on Thursday to force out striking workers in a violent clash that spilled onto the streets and left at least two workers dead.
Steel workers and police with riot gear and shields fought a pitched battle at the Sicartsa complex, which has been closed for three weeks by workers defending a union boss whom the government accuses of graft.
Dozens were injured when some 600 police moved in firing tear gas canisters early in the morning at the plant in the western state of
Concerns grow after journalist shot in Mexico
Mexico became Latin America's most dangerous country in which to be a journalist in 2005, the international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday.
The organization issued a statement expressing concern about the safety of journalists in Mexico a day after police in the southern state of Oaxaca announced that a radio news reporter had been shot and critically wounded by assailants.
In northern Mexico alone this year, six journalists have been killed and a seventh is still missing, according to Mexican newspaper editors.
In September, Mexican President Vicente Fox said he would appoint a special
Drug war ravages Mexico border city, upsets U.S.
The first victim of the day was bound with duct tape, tortured and shot once in the back of the head. His body was then stuffed in the trunk of a Buick Century, doused with gasoline and set ablaze.
A second was found burned beyond recognition, propped up on a makeshift pyre of blazing car tires on the outskirts of this sweltering city on Mexico's border with the United States.
The two killings on Friday brought the murder toll to 119 this year in Nuevo Laredo, and the mayhem has put a strain between
Past examples of Mexico's Catholic Churc
A Mexican bishop's acknowledgment that drug traffickers often make church donations is only the most recent example of Catholic Church links to organized crime. Among others:
_ 1997: A priest at Mexico City's Basilica of Guadalupe, a shrine to Mexico's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, is criticized for speaking admiringly of charitable donations made by two known drug traffickers. His comments spark suspicions over possible drug-tainted donations to the church, which church leaders deny.
_ 2002: A former Mexican attorney general publishes book accusing churchmen of acting as intermediaries between the government and a major narcotics
Mexico's most wanted man may be in Guatemala-police
Mexico's most wanted man, drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, may have entered neighboring Guatemala where police are searching for him, authorities said on Friday.
"We have not yet determined if he is here, but we have evidence that leads us to believe he is inside our territory," Guatemala's anti-drug police chief Adan Castillo told a news conference.
Guzman has been sought in Mexico since he escaped from a high-security jail in 2001. He has engaged in a fierce war with rival drug barons that has killed more than 1,000 people this year.
The United States is
Mexico says drug trafficking DVD won't cost federal investigators their jobs
Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor will not lose his job despite doubts about whether federal agents were involved in the videotaped beating and torture of four drug hit men, a government spokesman said Monday.
Ruben Aguilar, chief spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said that no federal investigator was in danger of being fired in the wake of the recording, which has sent shock waves through Mexico's anti-narcotics efforts.
"It doesn't put anyone at risk" of losing their jobs, Aguilar said during his daily briefing with reporters.
But he refused to comment
