Mexican Drug War

On the bullet-ridden streets of Mexico, weary residents ask a pertinent question about the recent arrests of some leading alleged drug traffickers -- do they really mean the Mexican government is regaining control or will they only lead to more bloodshed? GlobalPost's Ioan Grillo tracks the string of high-profile arrests, but concludes they won't end the drug war.

Mexico is celebrating its 200th anniversary as an independent nation and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican revolution. But some of the celebrations are being scaled back as the country is being swept by a wave of drug prohibition violence.

Old, wealthy men held hostage and humiliated; paramilitary cops in ski masks taking dudes into custody; people walking the streets in body armor, automatic weapons out; and all the dead bodies and shot-up cars. Facing a situation like that, it’s no surprise that Blog Del Narco’s author, who’s not even 30 years old, would want to stay anonymous. Which is why it’s remarkable that he’s given an interview to Boing Boing describing what it’s like to work in a wealthy city turned urban warzone.

Border Patrol agents in Texas were fired upon after chasing a suspected drug smuggler back to the banks of the Rio Grande close to Anzalduas Park. Though rarely reported by the mainstream press, armed conflicts along the border with Mexican drug smugglers are becoming a rather common event.

Over the past weekend Mexico saw a proliferation of drug prohibition violence, including the slaying of 25 people in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and a prison break that saw 85 inmates escape.

The meandering network of pipes, wells and tankers belonging to the gigantic state oil company Pemex has long been an easy target of crooks and drug traffickers who siphon off natural gas, gasoline and even crude, robbing the Mexican treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Now the prohibition-created drug traffickers have taken sabotage to a new level: They've hobbled key operations in parts of the Burgos Basin, home to Mexico's biggest natural-gas fields.

The head of an association of border factory owners said the sector is in crisis mode as unrelenting drug prohibition violence in northern Mexico has spooked investors into curtailing operations at some plants and rethinking expansion at others.

Gunmen have killed the mayor of a town in northern Mexico as he sat at his desk. He is the third politician slain in the past month as drug prohibition-related violence escalates.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that the violent, drug prohibition-created Mexican drug trafficking organizations were starting to look like an insurgency. Prohibition violence -- including beheadings, hangings and shootings -- has expanded from the border area to more of the country, including several car bombs for the first time this year. Mexican drug gangs have been blamed for the significant uptick in violence, increasingly against government officials and institutions.

The kidnappings of five petroleum company workers along with 30 others have terrorized the oil community, paralyzing segments of the business. Months later, families have still heard nothing.