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Zetas tighten grip on region bordering S. Texas
Cartel’s control largely has freed area from Juarez-type bloodshed
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS

Oct. 25, 2009, 11 :10 AM

JUAN CARLOS REYES AFP/Getty Images
Suspected Zeta cartel hit man Carlos Adrian Martinez is presented to the media Wednesday in Monterrey.

MATAMOROS, Mexico — This border city near the mouth of the Rio Grande is eerily quiet on most days — eerie because its streets are largely the lair of the Zetas gunmen, the most feared and savage gangsters in Mexico.

On other days, gunbattles ensue in broad daylight between heavily armed Zeta enforcers and those who get in their way — as happened last month when soldiers stopped a suspicious carload of men on a street that runs along the Rio Grande levee through a wealthy Matamoros neighborhood. The gunmen opened fire, tossed grenades. Bullets tore into houses and businesses and even flew across the Rio Grande, hitting buildings and a parked car at the riverfront campus of the University of Texas branch campus.

“We have this fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,â€