Pubdate: Tue, 26 Oct 2010
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Nicholas Casey

GUNMEN KILL 13 AT TIJUANA DRUG-TREATMENT CENTER

MEXICO CITY-Armed men carried out a massacre in a Tijuana
drug-rehabilitation center, Mexican authorities said Monday, showing
that violence persists even in one of the few border towns where
officials claim to be defeating powerful crime groups.

The attack occurred late Sunday evening when armed commandos entered
El Camino, a recovery center for drug addicts, and killed 13 people
with scores of automatic rifle rounds.

Investigators were gathering evidence at the scene of the attack
Monday, said a spokesman for the attorney general's office of Baja
California, the state where Tijuana is located.

Pictures of the scene showed military men carrying rifles and
patrolling the treatment center, with several body bags visible
through a metal gate at the entrance of the compound.

The bloody attack happened shortly after another weekend shooting
across the Texas border in Ciudad Juarez where gunmen burst into a
birthday party and killed 14 young people, including a 13-year-old
girl.

Yet unlike Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana has been touted by officials as an
example of progress in the government's assault against crime groups.
Just last week, the city, which lies adjacent to San Diego, Calif.,
made headlines on both sides of the border after authorities
intercepted more than 100 tons of marijuana-what the Mexican
government hailed as the largest seizure in the country's history and
a blow to drug traffickers.

Earlier this month Mexican President Felipe Calderon praised Tijuana
at a conference meant to show off the city to high-profile visitors
including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Mexican billionaire
Carlos Slim.

"Tijuana shows that it's possible for a society focused on the issue
of crime to return to being a society focused on competitiveness and
success," President Calderon said.

Yet this year has been deadly in Tijuana, where violence spiked two
years ago as drug traffickers battled for the key transit point into
California. More than 650 people have been killed in the city in 2010,
putting it close to its deadliest year in 2008 when there were 843
homicides reported. This month a decapitated body was found below a
bridge leading to a beachside community. The body appeared to have
been separated from its head after the victim had been hanged.

David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University
of San Diego, described the recent homicides as "low-level killings"
not indicating severe warfare between crime groups.

In all, he said the level of drug-related killings statewide was about
half of what it was in 2008, perhaps in part because of last year's
capture of a drug lord known as "El Teo" who had been fighting for
control of the region.

Still, Mr. Shirk asked: "Who is in charge of Tijuana, the authorities
or the thugs? I don't think there's any clear evidence that the
authorities are in charge."

Attacks on drug-treatment centers have become more common in northern
Mexico, but the criminals' motivations have remained mysterious.

An attack in June at a drug-rehabilitation center in the city of
Chihuahua killed 19 people; a similar attack in September 2009 in
Ciudad Juarez claimed 17 young men after commandos mowed down patients
during the night and escaped.

Police have theorized that the attacks may be perpetrated by drug
cartels, seeking to execute members of rival gangs who themselves are
seeking treatment for addiction, or have taken refuge in the treatment
centers.

Elsewhere in Mexico, drug-related violence continued. On Monday a
video posted on YouTube showed the kidnapped brother of a former state
attorney general of Chihuahua saying at gunpoint that he and his
sister had worked for a drug gang.

Such coerced confessions by crime groups have been common this year;
Patricia Gonzalez, the former state attorney general has denied links
to cartels in the past.
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