Violence

Clashes between rival gangs created by drug prohibition in Mexico left 34 people dead over the weekend, and the beating death of a mayor is the fifth killing of a city leader in six weeks, the latest fallout from the country's deadly drug prohibition war.

The alleged shooting of a US boater by Mexican pirates on Falcon Lake, which straddles the Texas-Mexico border, is raising fears about spillover drug prohibition violence from Mexico into the US.

Mexico has been shaken by yet another weekend of drug prohibition violence, with 34 deaths blamed on drug trafficking organizations and a series of grenade attacks that injured a dozen people.

In the midst of the brutal drug prohibition war encroaching on their lives, thousands of Mexicans every morning check social network websites to see if they will encounter any unpleasant surprises on the way to work or school.

Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, says that the spate of recent deaths may be no coincidence: It comes as the federal government is increasing intelligence capabilities and taking a harder look at collusion between traffickers and local police and authorities, as it looks to centralize the police force. Therefore, many mayors who once may have turned a blind eye to trafficking exploits in their towns might now be refusing to cooperate. “If the mayor is an obstacle, that is when the problem starts,” says Mr. Benitez.

A mayor who took the job when every other official in his town quit out of fear of drug traffickers was reported slain, the fifth Mexican mayor killed in six weeks. Authorities said Gustavo Sanchez, mayor of the town of Tancitaro in Michoacan state, had apparently been beaten to death with rocks.

Authorities say gunmen have killed the mayor of a northern Mexican town — adding to a string of attacks on political figures in the drug prohibition-plagued region. Mayor Prisciliano Rodriguez Salinas was gunned down yesterday along with another employee of the town named Doctor Gonzalez, about 50 kilometers east of Monterrey. Rival gangs have been battling to control drug routes through Nuevo Leon and neighboring border states.

A Mexican journalist threatened by drug gangs said he had been granted political asylum in the United States to escape the drug trafficking organizations' increasingly violent campaign to silence the media.

The death toll from an ambush staged against police in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has risen to eight, with one officer wounded, officials said.

A Mexican newspaper in the heartland of the country's drug prohibition war has asked traffickers for guidance on whether it should publish stories on the conflict. The killing of a 21-year-old photographer last week prompted the newspaper to run a front-page editorial asking: "What do you want from us?"