Mexico drug war escalates with more dead and fear

Suspected drug hitmen in Mexico have murdered a top prosecutor, slain 21 people in a shootout and dumped a severed head outside the house of a mayoral candidate on the eve of elections, authorities said.

2 July 2010, 12:00am
by Karl Stagno-Navarra

2 min read

The violence erupted just south of the U.S. border and was the latest sign that Mexico's drug war taking a dramatically intense turn for the worse.

Gunmen have killed Sandra Salas, a deputy prosecutor for the northern state of Chihuahua in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday night as she was being driven by bodyguards..

After, unidentified men also left a severed ‘head’ outside the house of the favourite for Ciudad Juarez mayor, Hector Murgia, who is running for Mexico's main opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, before the vote in 12 states due next Sunday.

President Felipe Calderon is under mounting pressure to control escalating drug violence that is worrying Washington and is scaring tourists and forcing some U.S.-owned factories to freeze investment plans.

Two drug gangs clashed on a desert highway late yesterday in a shootout that left 21 people dead in the northern state of Sonora.

Mexican authorities are on high alert after hitmen dressed as marines ambushed and killed the front-runner candidate for governor in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas Monday, in the worst sign so far of political intimidation by smuggling gangs.

Murguia, a former Ciudad Juarez mayor, faces accusations from rival politicians and rights groups of being in the pay of the city's powerful Juarez cartel, which is fighting the Sinaloa alliance for control of trafficking routes in a battle that has killed some 5,700 people in the city since 2008.

More than 26,000 people have died in drug violence across Mexico over the past three and a half years.

Calderon has repeatedly vowed to stick to his military-backed anti-drug strategy, relying on thousands of troops across the country to curb the power of drug cartels.

Adding to a climate of violence ahead of the elections, a mayor in the southern state of Oaxaca was killed along with another local official last Wednesday. The state prosecutor's office said the attack on Nicolas Garcia, mayor of the coastal town of Santo Domingo de Morelos, was likely a robbery.