Thread: WAR IN MEXICO: 9 Decapitated Bodies Dumped in Mexico UPDATED

Mexico Under Siege
Heads, bodies of 9 decapitated men dumped in Mexico

The remains were found at separate places in the state of Guerrero, a hot spot in the country's drug war. Local media are saying the victims may be Mexican soldiers.

By Ken Ellingwood
10:33 AM PST, December 21, 2008

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Nine men were decapitated and dumped at separate sites in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, authorities said today.

Mexican news outlets reported that the men appeared to be Mexican soldiers because the heads bore close-cropped hair. But state officials said they had not determined the victims' identities.


"So far we can't confirm that the subjects belong to any security force or the army," said an official in Guerrero's public-safety department. The official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

Heads and bodies were discovered today in the city of Chilpancingo, the state capital. The heads were bundled in a plastic bag and dumped at a shopping center, while the bodies turned up in two other sites at opposite ends of the city, authorities said.

The find came two days after three gunmen in Guerrero died in a shootout with soldiers. Mexican media said the beheadings may have been intended as retribution.


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The website of the daily El Universal newspaper, citing unnamed state law-enforcement officials, reported that a message that accompanied the bag of heads warned: "For every one of mine you kill, I'm going to kill 10 of yours."

Beheadings have become increasingly common around Mexico amid rising drug-related violence that has killed more than 5,300 people this year.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown against drug traffickers two years ago, triggering clashes between security forces and gunmen and vicious feuding among rival drug gangs.

The coastal state of Guerrero, home to the Acapulco resort, has been one of the drug war's more violent corners. Nearly 500 people have been killed there since January 2007, soon after Calderon announced his anti-crime offensive, according to a tally by the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute.

As part of his crackdown, Calderon has sent 45,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police into the streets. The offensive has produced thousands of arrests and some major seizures of drugs, cash and weapons, though there is no sign yet that any of the country's main drug gangs have been dislodged.

Most of the killings have resulted from turf wars among drug-trafficking organizations, which battle for the most coveted routes for smuggling drugs into the United States.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 5030.story

if laws are not enforced, soon they are no longer respected and you have anarchy. this country needs to learn this from our southern neighbor. we need border security, that is effective and we need to enforce our immigration laws!

12 decapitated bodies found in southern Mexico

By NATALIA PARRA, The Associated Press 3:26 p.m. December 21, 2008

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Authorities found the decapitated bodies of 12 men in the southern state of Guerrero on Sunday, and some of the victims have been identified as soldiers.

State Public Safety Secretary Juan Salinas Altes said nine bodies were found on a major boulevard in the state capital, Chilpancingo, just a few hundred yards (meters) from where the state governor participated in a traditional religious procession later in the day amid heavy security.

Mexico has been hit by a rising wave of drug-fueled violence, and officials estimate that more than 5,300 people have died in organized crime-related slayings so far in 2008.

Mexican drug cartels have increasingly taken to chopping the heads off their victims, who include rival traffickers and lawmen. On Aug. 28, a dozen decapitated bodies were found outside Merida, the capital of Yucatan state.

Experts are still trying to identify the bodies found Sunday, but a still-undetermined number of them are soldiers, Salinas Altes said. An army base is located nearby.

The bodies were found spread along the length of the boulevard, and nearby a sign was found that read "for every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10."

Nine heads, some gagged with tape, were found in a bag nearby.
Local prosecutors said three more decapitated bodies were found Sunday in a village on the outskirts of Chilpancingo.

Two other severed heads were found on the same boulevard in Chilpancingo on Dec. 7 alongside a sign reading: "Soldiers who are supposedly fighting crime, and they turn out to be kidnappers. This is going to happen to you."

Scores of police and soldiers have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels in late 2006. While Mexican criminal gangs once appeared to avoid confrontations with the army, they now often openly attack soldiers.

In May 2007, gunmen linked to a drug gang killed five soldiers in an ambush in the neighboring state of Michoacan.

Also Sunday, federal police reported they had captured three suspected cartel hit men in the border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... ndex=26008

Decapitated soldiers new blow to Mexico in drug war

By Mica Rosenberg Mica Rosenberg – 59 mins ago
Members of a drug gang are shown to the media at the Attorney General's office Reuters – Members of a drug gang are shown to the media at the Attorney General's office in the suburb of Escobedo, …

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Felipe Calderon vowed on Monday not to back down from the fight against powerful drug cartels who decapitated eight soldiers in the most serious blow to the army in a 2-year-old offensive.

Police found the beheaded and tortured bodies tied up in the city of Chilpancingo, about an hour north of Acapulco, during the weekend.

The heads were stuffed in a black plastic bag and tossed outside a shopping center with a note saying, "For every one of us you kill, we are going to kill 10," Mexican media reported.

An ex-police commander, also without a head, was found with the soldiers.

The gruesome attack was the worst against the army since Calderon deployed some 45,000 troops to take on drug gangs after coming to office in 2006.

"We are committed to this fight with all of its consequences," Calderon said at an event honoring a military hero. "We will not stand down and there will be no truce with enemies of the state," he said.

Calderon's assault against drug gangs has netted several major smugglers wanted in the United States, but violence in Mexico has worsened. More than 5,300 people have died this year, over twice as many as in 2007, as traffickers fight each other and the government over drug smuggling routes.

Washington, which has promised Mexico hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to buy equipment and provide security training, now sees Mexican cartels as its No. 1 drug threat.

It was not clear which faction was behind the beheadings. The main drug gangs are the Gulf cartel from northeastern Mexico and a federation of smugglers run out of the northwestern state of Sinaloa by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

The violence threatens to scare away investors and hit Mexico's economy, already shaky from the global financial crisis.

Mexican cartels are increasingly taking the place of the Colombian organizations who once ruled the international cocaine trade. Colombians have ceded many traditional trafficking routes to the United States to the Mexican gangs, preferring lower profile roles or focusing on Europe.

"There are no drug trafficking organizations left in Colombia that think they can go toe-to-toe with the nation-state; the cartels up in Mexico actually think that they can," a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official based in Colombia told Reuters.

Calderon deployed the soldiers to fight organized crime in part because they are seen as less corrupt than police.

But military men from generals to foot soldiers have said they too are being offered thousands of dollars to turn a blind eye to shipments or call off anti-drugs operations.

(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez, editing by Patricia Zengerle)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081222/wl_ ... co_drugs_2