Mexican Drug War

A series of high-profile murders of U.S. citizens along the border with Mexico has raised fears about drug prohibition violence spilling over into the United States.

Suspected drug trafficking organization gunmen hurled grenades, burned vehicles and blocked streets in a rapid series of attacks in Mexico's second-largest city. The seven attacks within two hours appear to have been coordinated. A policeman and two transportation workers were injured in the attacks.

The LPGA has canceled the $1.3 million Tres Marias Championship in Mexico due to concerns over drug prohibition violence.

The deadly drug prohibition war in Ciudad Juarez and Mexico has some U.S. churches and ministries divided on whether or not to continue to send missionaries and volunteers across the border.

This week the Mexican military pursued drug prohibition-created trafficking suspects in operations smack in the middle of the sprawling capital. Marines raided a hotel and a home in the middle-class districts of Napoles and Del Valle, arresting one suspected member of the Zetas drug trafficking organization. On Wednesday, army units searched homes in the Iztacalco borough. Is something changing?

An American missionary couple who were allegedly attacked by drug prohibition gunmen in a dangerous part of Mexico may have been targeted for their expensive pickup truck, because drug gangs covet the vehicles, police said. Sam Davis told investigators that that he and his wife were driving near the city of San Fernando, about 70 miles south of the Mexican border city of Reynosa, when gunmen in a pickup truck tried to stop them. When the Davises sped up, the gunmen fired, shooting Nancy Davis in the head.

An example of the folly of prohibition and the endless innovation of prohibition-created drug trafficking organizations, this grainy surveillance video shows smugglers using a catapult to launch small bales of marijuana across the Arizona-Mexico border.

Since the beginning of the drug prohibition war, the drug trade has ballooned, spreading violence and corruption across large parts of the globe. Despite billions spent on combating them drug traffickers have for decades outwitted the authorities, keeping consumers in North America and Europe supplied at a price and purity that remains remarkably consistent despite law enforcement officials around the world frequently heralding the dismantling of trafficking networks.

The mayor of Ciudad Juárez has accused federal police of killing one of his bodyguards in an incident that underlines the growing tension between the different authorities in Mexico's drug prohibition war capital. "My bodyguard, accompanied by another, identified himself, raised his hands and was shot in the head," Héctor Murguía Lardizábal told reporters. "That's a murder." The mayor said that when he went to the federal police base in a nearby hotel to demand an explanation, he received a volley of insults an had a gun pointed at him.