Vicious killings escalate in Mexico drug war

By Lizbeth Diaz
REUTERS

10:20 a.m. October 7, 2008

TIJUANA, Mexico – Bodies are cut up and dumped in acid. Victims are stripped naked and hung from bridges. Others have their tongues cut out before being murdered – Mexican gangs are using horrifying methods to outdo each other in an already harrowing drugs war.

Drug cartel hitmen have massacred some 70 people in the past 10 days in Tijuana on the U.S.-Mexico border, once a freewheeling city serving Americans tequila, cheap medicines and sex that is being devastated by the war.

Mexico's government says most of the recent victims belonged to Tijuana's Arellano Felix family cartel that won notoriety in the 1990s for smuggling tons of cocaine into California and for its ruthless elimination of enemies.
But it has been weakened in recent years with former leaders killed or arrested, and other cartels are moving in to take control of the drugs trade in Tijuana and throughout the border state of Baja California.

β€œThe Arellano Felix cartel no longer has control of drug trafficking in Tijuana, rival gangs are coming into the plaza,β€