July 30th, 2008
Mexico’s drug cartels target bystanders: In Sinaloa, carnage brings widespread terror
The killings here — a massacre of eight people who were not suspected of drug-trafficking ties — punctuated a vicious turn in Mexico’s drug war, a savage conflict between rival cartels and the federal government that has taken more than 7,000 lives in the past 2 1/2 years.
In the past, cartels have killed their rivals, as well as police and public officials. Occasionally even family members have been slain. Yet in recent weeks, an increasing number of innocent bystanders have been gunned down by suspected drug cartel hit men here in Sinaloa, a cartel stronghold on Mexico’s Pacific coast, as well as in the brutally contested drug corridors along the U.S. border.
The drug-related violence near the US border is getting worse, but I fear it’s really only beginning. As it grows, we’ll be seeing more of it spill over onto our side of the line, and we’ll be hearing more about how US guns are creating the carnage.
Then there’s
Three days before the massacre in this town, cartel assassins killed 11 people in three daylight shootouts in Culiacan. Among the victims were two college professors who had the misfortune to be waiting in a car repair shop when the shooting started. Cartel members also are blamed for holding hostage dozens of customers in a Mazatlan shopping center and firing bazookas into a Culiacan neighborhood, though no civilians were killed. [emphasis Murdoc's]
Bazookas? Did those also come from the States?
