Mexico drug violence escalates

Brutal war between cartels has spurred president to enlist troops to crack down on illegal trade and curb deaths.

By Jeremy Schwartz
Cox International Correspondent
Published on: 03/04/07

Acapulco, Mexico —- On the sun-kissed beach, women paraded by in bikinis, vendors sold cheap bracelets to tourists, and heavyset men in Speedos sipped margaritas.

Up on the boardwalk though, machine gun-wielding members of Mexico's elite federal police force pulled over cars for random inspections, stopped city buses and checked trunks and IDs.

More than 250 people were executed here last year as this sweltering Pacific resort transformed into the latest battleground between rival cartels battling for supremacy of the multibillion-dollar drug trade.

After what experts called a decade of paralysis, corruption and inefficiency, newly elected President Felipe Calderon has sent 20,000 Mexican military and federal troops to six states to confront the drug cartels.

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Spring-breakers party on amid Acapulco drug war

March 5, 2007 - 7:30AM

US spring-breakers are guzzling beers and slamming back tequilas in the Mexican Pacific beach resort of Acapulco, unfazed by a violent drug war that has killed police and left body parts strewn about town.

Famed for its cliff divers and sweeping bay, the once glamorous resort city has seen daytime shootouts between police and drug hit men who have dumped severed heads in public as part of turf battles that killed 2,000 people in Mexico last year.

Gunmen disguised as soldiers killed seven people in an attack on two police stations in February and heavily armed federal police now patrol the resort day and night as part of a nationwide crackdown by new President Felipe Calderon.