http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N20227438.htm

Mexico hit by fresh wave of drug killings
21 Jan 2006 05:22:42 GMT

Source: Reuters

(Adds Acapulco killings, changes dateline, pvs NUEVO LAREDO)

ACAPULCO, Mexico, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Drug gangs mowed down three people in a drive-by shooting in Acapulco on Friday, a day after members of a drug cartel in the northern border town of Nuevo Laredo murdered 3 others and set their bodies on fire.

The killers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco shot their victims in the street in an outlying district of the city, home to some 700,000 people.

"The characteristics of the crime show it was an execution by those who are caught up in drugs," Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado said.

A feud between rival drug gangs broke out in Acapulco in 2005, surprising Mexicans more used to drug violence on the U.S. border or in the drug-producing states of western Mexico.

Last year, the deputy head of a state police force was shot dead leaving a beachside restaurant and suspected members of a drug gang attacked a police station with grenades.

Tourists have not been involved in the violence and Salgado said the city, popular with U.S. visitors, was safe.

"People involved in illicit activities have problems, but tourists are respected here, they walk about here, they are looked after here," he said.

More than 1,000 people died in drug killings in Mexico last year, mostly in a fight between the Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico and an alliance of traffickers from the western state of Sinaloa.

On Thursday, firemen in Nuevo Laredo found the bodies of three men who had been shot and set ablaze to warn off rivals in a drug war that has claimed 16 victims this month in the town, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.

The bodies were found in the trunk of a burning sport utility vehicle. Two of the men were handcuffed.

Dousing victims with gasoline and burning them is a favored tactic of the warring cartels, designed to spread fear.

Nuevo Laredo is on the front line of a war for control of the lucrative cross-border trade in cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Border violence has increased since Mexican President Vicente Fox declared war on drug cartels a year ago.

Fox temporarily ordered the army on to the streets in June, after the city's newly appointed public security chief was gunned down on the day of his appointment.

The U.S. State Department has issued several travel alerts for Nuevo Laredo in the past year, warning that drug-related violence was getting out of hand in border cities.