Mexican Drug War

The once-fearsome Guatemalan army has returned to the jungles where it battled Marxist guerrillas a generation ago, this time to hunt shadowy Mexican drug traffickers fighting for control of strategic smuggling routes to the United States. The military operations are the clearest sign yet that as Mexico's wealthy drug trafficking organizations spread into Central America, wary but weak governments here are preparing to follow Mexican President Felipe Calderon's U.S.-backed decision to turn the armed forces against the traffickers. That prohibitionist strategy has failed to slow the violence in Mexico, which has left more than 34,000 dead in four years.

US Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal likened Mexico's drug war to an "insurgency" and suggested the US might need to send troops to Mexico and to prevent prohibition-created drug trafficking organizations from taking over the country. Mexico has condemned the remarks, which Westphal has retracted and apologized for, but they echo September comments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also compared Mexico's drug prohibition threat to an "insurgency." President Obama immediately backed away from Mrs. Clinton's comparison then, just as Westphal immediately labeled his own words "inaccurate."

Relatives feared for her safety and urged Police Chief Erica Gandara to keep a low profile. But she refused, posing with her rifle for newspaper interviews. Then, at 6 a.m. on December 23, 10 drug trafficking organization gunmen pulled up to her residence, dragged her out of the house and set the home on fire. She has not been seen or heard from since.

Three teenage boys were shot and killed in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. Two, 15 and 16-years-old, were US citizens living in the town, but attending high schools in Texas.

Mexican authorities recovered the bodies of five men who were dumped on the side of road in the northern state of Zacatecas. The deaths raised to 41 the number of people killed over the weekend due to drug prohibition violence.

Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal, the second-highest ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army, described the situation in Mexico created by drug prohibition as an insurgency and fretted over a scenario in which armed U.S. soldiers could be called to the border and/or into Mexico. Westphal is the most senior U.S. official to publicly compare Mexico’s drug cartels to an insurgency since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a similar assessment last September. Westfall — who said he was expressing a personal opinion, but one he had shared with the White House — said he didn’t want to ever see a situation in which "armed and fighting" American soldiers are sent to combat an insurgency "on our border, in violation of our Constitution, or to have to send them across the border."

At least 17 people -- including three young students -- were killed due to drug prohibition violence in northern Mexico this weekend.

Corrupt officials working in Mexican prisons is a well-known problem. Sandra Avila Beltran, the alleged leader of the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization has been receiving beauty treatments in jail — seems even behind bars a Queen can't be seen with wrinkles. An inquiry has been launched by Mexican officials into how a doctor was able to perform the "unauthorized procedure" on the high-profile inmate, dubbed the 'Queen of the Pacific', at the Santa Martha Acatitla prison in Mexico City.

Officials are warning U.S. citizens not to drive at night in parts of the western Mexican city of Guadalajara after suspected drug trafficking organizations burned vehicles and blocked streets there.