Mexican Drug War

According to the U.S. Department of State, 92 Americans have been reported as victims of homicide in Mexico from June 2009 to June 2010. On September 10, the agency issued a travel warning for Americans planning to head to Mexico. It warned against taking unnecessary trips to Michoacán, Tamaulipas, parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango and Coahuila because of the ongoing drug prohibition violence.

The Peten jungle, once known for its jaguars and Mayan ruins, has fallen prey to a notorious Mexican drug prohibition gang that operates from remote jungle ranches and has begun openly challenging Guatemalan security forces for control of the roads.

All 14 police officers in Los Ramones, a rural town in northern Mexico, fled the force in terror after gunmen fired more than 1,000 bullets and flung six grenades at their headquarters. The gunmen’s 20-minute shooting spree destroyed six police vehicles and left the white and orange police station pocked with bullet holes. The attack was the second in less than a week against police forces in Nuevo Leon -- last week, grenades were thrown at police in Sabinas Hidalgo.

Of the more than 28,000 people who have died in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon declared a prohibitionist war on drug trafficking organizations in 2006, 1,200 were minors.

Police in Tijuana, Mexico, said 13 people were lined up and shot to death at a drug rehabilitation center.

Pfc. Jose Gil Hernandez, a Texas National Guard soldier, was gunned down in violent Ciudad Juarez. He crossed the border despite the Guard urging soldiers not on active duty to stay out of Mexico. Hernandez is at least the third American serviceman killed in Juarez since the drug prohibition war began.

Mexico's national security spokesman Alejandro Poire trumpeted 'the largest seizure in the country's history of marijuana prepared and packed for sale and distribution.' But will this make a dent in the bi-national effort to stem the power of drug trafficking organizations in Mexico? Weapons, cash, and drug seizures, as well as top arrests of drug traffickers, are always touted by the government as signs of success, but they do little to impact the overall structure of the organizations, experts say.

Mexican drug prohibition war: In part one of a two-part special on the unregulated drug trafficking organizations consuming Mexico, Joseph Woby travels to one of its most dangerous and poverty-stricken cities.