Mexico's Cartels Escalate Drug War
Gangs enlist militias, whose tactics include beheadings, in battles over smuggling routes.
Los Angeles Times:Richard Marosi:June 23rd 2006
Links:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-behead23jun23,0,1716908.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Related Article Link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-behead22jun22,0,1258154.story

Summary:
On June 20th 2006, three Mexican police officers responded to a report of a kidnapping in Rosarito Beach, just south of Tijuana, a mere 15 miles south of the border with the US. The caller reported a convoy of 40 vehicles carrying 70 heavily armed men that were “prowling the streets” of Rosarito Beach. The next morning the police officers’ decapitated bodies, along with the body of an unidentified man, were found in an empty lot in Rosarito Beach. Their heads were found miles away in Tijuana. The murdered officers’ names are Benjamin Fabian Ventura, Jesus Hernandez Ballesteros, and Ismael Arellano Torres.

This assault marks an increasing shift by Mexican drug cartels to the employment of military style militias employing former soldiers and gang members. The most notorious being the Zetas. Over the past year there have been several large scale, military style armed assaults against law enforcement and public officials. The Mexican Attorney General's top organized crime prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos remarked in a recent interview with El Universal, “abductions and beheadings were characteristic of the brutal Central American-based Mara Salvatrucha gang, which has become increasingly involved in the Mexican drug trade”. He also commented, “We have seen the phenomenon of decapitation in El Salvador, a brutal act of intimidation that is occurring here as drug gangs are worn down and resort to recruiting this kind of group”.

Analysis:
This is quite a sensational story. In effect the cartels are operating private armies at this point. I'm sure the number of vehicles in the convoy was just an estimate on the part of the person calling the police, but 40 vehicles carrying 70 armed men is quite revelation. It gives the casual observer some indication of the amount of money involved in the drug trade and the level of effort that is being exerted by the cartels to control the drug smuggling corridors. In short, they are willing to go to war. Two important points to remember are that the drug smuggling corridors don't stop at the border. They run right into our biggest cities. Second, the criminal elements, namely MS-13, that are used by the cartels already have large established cliques along many of the corridors in the US. The growing audacity and brazen aggressiveness of the cartels seems to be growing as is the involvement of MS-13.