Border war

Mexico: Efforts fail to stop drug gangs from terrorizing Nuevo Laredo | John Dawson

Not even the Mexican army could get the job done. In a tacit admission of failure, officials in Mexico City in March renamed and reorganized a military operation that had been designed to quell violence spawned by warring drug cartels along Mexico's northern border with Texas. The Mexican government retooled the "Secure Mexico" program that placed federal troops in Nuevo Laredo, renaming it "Northern Border" and promising to send between 600 and 800 more federal troops and police into Nuevo Laredo. But there are signs that Mexico's new initiative will fail just like its last.

Since Mexican troops marched last summer into Nuevo Laredo to stop the territory war between the Gulf and Sinaloa drug cartels, the carnage has only increased. Last year, around 170 were killed; this year, more than 50 have been killed in just three months, including four federal officers who, Mexican officials claim, were assassinated on March 16 by local police working for the Gulf Cartel. Shootouts and assassinations, often carried out in broad daylight, have transformed Nuevo Laredo, a once-bustling tourist location, into a frightened ghost town.