http://www.belleville.com/mld/bellevill ... 504822.htm

Posted on Wed, Sep. 13, 2006

Gunmen kill police chief in Mexico

IOAN GRILLO
Associated Press

MEXICO CITY - Gunmen ambushed and killed a police chief in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon Tuesday in the latest slaying of a law officer in a region ravaged by a war between drug gangs.

Enrique Barrera, police chief of the town of Linares, about 135 miles southwest of the border at McAllen, Texas, was shot dead as he left his home to go to work, said Nuevo Leon Attorney General Carlos Trevino.

Trevino said the killing had the hallmarks of an organized crime hit, but he needed to gather more evidence before making a conclusive statement.

A lone gunman killed Nuevo Leon's top investigator, Marcelo Garza, last week outside an art gallery near the northern city of Monterrey.

Trevino said there was no evidence the two killings were related.

"They are two totally different things, independent from one another," Trevino told a news conference.

The border has seen a wave of violence attributed to a battle between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel for billion-dollar smuggling routes into the United States.

The struggle has spawned beheadings, grenade attacks and execution-style killings of rival gangsters and police officers.

Two Nuevo Leon police chiefs were shot and killed within hours of each other in February.

In June 2005, Alejandro Dominguez died in a hail of gunfire just eight hours after taking over as police chief of Nuevo Laredo, in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas.

The violence swelled following the 2003 arrest of Osiel Cardenas, alleged boss of the Gulf Cartel, which long controlled crime in the region. Investigators say the arrest encouraged Sinaloa mobster Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman to try and fight his way into the area.

The bloodshed has continued unabated despite President Vicente Fox calling for the "mother of all battles" against drug traffickers, and the mobilization of thousands of soldiers and federal paramilitary police.