MEXICO:IN ONE of the most violent escalations in the ongoing border drug war, suspected traffickers clashed on the streets of Tijuana early Saturday morning in a shoot-out that left 13 people dead and eight others injured.
Gunmen began firing on each other with rifles and automatic weapons in a light industrial area east of the city, according to authorities, leaving a trail of corpses, spent shell casings and bullet-riddled vehicles across Tijuana.
A security guard patrolling the parking lot of a convenience store near the initial confrontation on Boulevard Insurgentes, a major thoroughfare, said the gun battle there raged for at least 10 minutes.
The petrified watchman said he dived for cover and did not rise until long after the shooting had stopped. When it was over, he said, he saw abandoned vehicles, scattered weapons, broken glass, a blood-soaked bulletproof vest and several corpses.
It sounded like "a war", he said. "I thank God that I'm okay." The shoot-out is just the latest in a series of drug-related violence that has gripped the border town this year. In the first four months of 2008 alone, Tijuana has seen dozens of kidnappings, assaults and homicides, including children gunned down in the mayhem.
The violence has had a major economic impact on this tourist town and underscores the larger drug problem facing the Mexican government.
The motive for Saturday's bloodshed is still unclear. Police said it could have been a falling out between factions of the so-called Arellano Felix narcotics cartel, which has controlled the drug trade in this city. Or it could be another cartel trying to move in on its territory. Some speculate that the killings may have been revenge by traffickers against suspected informants.
Still, experts said the recent rise in violence undoubtedly is linked to a major offensive by authorities against organised drug crime, an operation that has strained delicate alliances between traffickers that had previously co-operated in the lucrative narcotics trade.
Mexican president Felipe Calderon, in co-operation with state and local authorities, has sent hundreds of soldiers and federal police to Tijuana and other trafficking hotspots this year.
However, results have been mixed. While the operation that has resulted in several high-profile arrests and seizures of caches of drugs and weapons, organised crime has responded with unpre-cedented ferocity to intimidate informants and police, and to punish rivals they suspect of betraying them.
"They are under pressure and turning on each other," said Agustin Perez Aguilar, spokesman for the public safety department of Baja California Norte. "We hope we have a lot more events like [Saturday's]."
However, some residents and tourists may not agree. The resulting violence has terrorised cities such as Tijuana, where cartel hitmen have all but abandoned traditional codes of honour, with daylight attacks and assassinations of children.
In January, gunmen stormed the home of Tijuana deputy police chief Margarito Saldana Rivera, killing him, his wife and two daughters, the youngest aged 12. A couple and their three-year-old son were slain the same week in what was believed to be a case of mistaken identity.
City Hall had to be evacuated earlier this year because of a bomb threat. Public shoot-outs have sent pedestrians scrambling for cover and pinned residents in their homes for hours. Tourism has plunged as US day-trippers stay away from the city's shops, restaurants and nightlife.
The situation in Tijuana has grown particularly volatile after a Mexican general last week publicly identified about three dozen local, state and federal law enforcement officers he alleges are in league with organised crime.
Gen Sergio Aponte Polito made the claims in an open letter to the Tijuana daily newspaper Frontera. The charges have caused such a rift between various levels of law enforcement that Mr Calderon ordered Gen Aponte, the Baja state governor, its attorney general and its secretary of public safety to fly to the capital last Saturday to meet the federal secretary of defence and secretary of federal public security, according to the spokesman.
"They were called by Calderon to settle their difference," Mr Perez said at a news conference. The prospect of infighting between the cartels and law enforcement has some observers worried about the unintended consequences of the recent crackdown, and whether the violence it has unleashed can be contained.
Still, Mr Calderon's efforts have generally been popular with the Mexican public. And they reflect a heightened level of commitment by the federal government to neutralise criminals and weed out corrupt public officials and police, said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. "Even though it's bloody, even though it's costly, people like the fact that the government's standing up," he said.
Following last Saturday's shoot-outs, law enforcement officials said they recovered 54 weapons, 21 vehicles, 45 magazines of heavy calibre ammunition and 1,500 spent shells at five separate locations in Tijuana.
A resident who lives near the site of the initial confrontation on Boulevard Insurgentes said the ground appeared to be "paved" with spent shells after the shooting ended.
- (La Times-Washington Post service)