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March 25, 2009 |
Mexico's drug war
In December of 2006, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, reversing earlier government passiveness. Since then, the government has made some gains, but at a heavy price - gun battles, assasinations, kidnappings, fights between rival cartels, and reprisals have resulted in over 9,500 deaths since December 2006 - over 5,300 killed last year alone. President Barack Obama recently announced extra agents were being deployed to the border and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Mexico today to pursue a broad diplomatic agenda - overshadowed now by spiraling drug violence and fears of greater cross-border spillover. Officials on both sides of the border are committed to stopping the violence, and stemming the flow of drugs heading north and guns and cash heading south. (34 photos total)

Army soldiers guard a police station in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Monday, March 16, 2009. As retired and active-duty soldiers largely took over security in the violence-wracked city of 1.3 million, a retired Army officer took over as head of police Monday, whose previous law enforcement chief resigned earlier, after receiving threats. (AP Photo) #

A federal policeman stands guard during an operation at a nightclub in downtown Ciudad Juarez March 7, 2009. Across the border from El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juarez recently received hundreds of heavily armed federal forces to take over anti-drug efforts from police tainted by corruption and links to drug traffickers. Picture taken March 7. (REUTERS/Tomas Bravo) #

A tourist leaves a hotel as a federal policeman stands guard during an operation following a bomb threat at a governmental finance office in the border city of Ciudad Juarez March 6, 2009. The threat prompted an operation by local police and federal forces to secure the site, local media said. (REUTERS/Tomas Bravo) #

Shoes used for smuggling marijuana are displayed in the Drug Museum at the headquarters of the Mexican Ministry of Defense in Mexico City March 9, 2009. High precision rifles, a diamond and gold encrusted mobile phone, clandestine laboratories for drug processing and many more items that once belonged to drug traffickers are displayed in this private museum used by the military to show the soldiers the lifestyle of the Mexican drug lords. (REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez) #

Texas Armoring Corp. President and CEO Trent Kimball examines a bullet proof windshield after it was shot at their facility in San Antonio, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009. Due to increased drug-cartel violence in northern Mexico, American companies say they're seeing increases in the number of cars they're asked to outfit with armor plating, bulletproof glass and defensive gadgets like push-button smoke screens and electrified door handles. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) #

A farm canal is seen at sunrise March 12, 2009 near El Centro, California. El Centro is suffering the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 22.6 percent, nearly as high as rates during the Great Depression, with Latinos especially being hit hard. The people of the Imperial Valley, an important food producing region in the desert north of the U.S.-Mexico border and east of San Diego, are plagued with a devastating combination of drought, a construction-idling housing bust, and a plummeting peso, which undercuts the buying power of Mexicans who shop on the U.S. side of the border. (David McNew/Getty Images) #

Central American migrants being held in captivity react as Mexican Army soldiers, unseen, enter to liberate them in Reynosa, Mexico, late Tuesday, March 17, 2009. More than 50 migrants were being kept in captivity by a kidnapping gang in order to extort their families in exchange for their freedom, according to Mexico's Army. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini) #

A forensic investigator in Tijuana examines a vertebra and other bone fragments that were all that remained of a human body recovered from a barrel of acid. The gruesome discovery in the Otay Mesa part of the city is consistent with a signature killing style of "El Teo", Tijuana's most wanted cartel kingpin. (Los Angeles Times photo by Don Bartletti) #

A border patrol vehicle drags the sand to make any new footprints of border crossers more visible along a recently constructed section of the controversial US-Mexico border fence expansion on previously pristine desert sands on March 14, 2009 between Yuma, Arizona and Calexico, California. (David McNew/Getty Images) #

A recently constructed section of the controversial US-Mexico border fence expansion project crosses previously pristine desert sands at sunrise on March 14, 2009 between Yuma, Arizona and Calexico, California. The new barrier between the US and Mexico stands 15 feet tall and sits on top of the sand so it can lifted by a machine and repositioned whenever the migrating desert dunes begin to bury it. The almost seven miles of floating fence cost about $6 million per mile to build. (David McNew/Getty Images) #

Soldiers escort drug kingpin Hector Huerta Rios at the air force base in Salinas Victoria, on the outskirts of Monterrey, northern Mexico March 24, 2009. Soldiers on Tuesday captured Huerta Rios of the Beltran Leyva cartel who is accused of the killing of a police chief in this industrial city. Huerta Rios was seized along with five persons, weapons and money at his car dealership. (REUTERS/Tomas Bravo) #
More links and information
As Clinton Visits Mexico, Strains Show in Relations - NYTimes.com 3/25
Mexican Drug Trafficking - NYTimes.com Topics Page
Mexican Drug War - Wikipedia entry