Mexican Drug War

The Mexican military killed a major drug lord last week, but that doesn't seem to have changed anything. The violence continues...

The Mexican government scored a victory this week with the killing of Beltran Leyva cartel head Arturo Beltran Leyva, but will it turn out to be a pyrrhic victory? Knocking off cartel heads in the past has typically led to renewed infighting as rivals vie to replace them.

Amnesty International accuses the Mexican military of human rights violations in the drug war -- a problem for US funding. Meanwhile, this year's south of the border prohibition-related death toll passed 7,000 this week.

Three years ago this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon sicced the military on the so-called drug cartels. Three years later, the drugs keep flowing north, the cash and guns keep flowing south, and more than 16,000 people have been killed. Here's the latest.

The carnage continues. This week an American citizen is among the casualties, but it looks like she was the victim of a soldier's inadvertent discharge.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference took place in Albuquerque last weekend. It was quite a show. Here's a scene report.

At a conference last week, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda bluntly accused the Mexican military of murdering members of the so-called drug cartels to avenge its own losses in the country's bloody wave of prohibition-related violence.

The Mexico Drug War Update took a break last week, but the violence didn't. Here's the latest rundown and body count.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference got underway Thursday in Albuquerque, and it looks like the biggest yet. Here's an initial report from the conference opening. Look for much more next week, too.

No break in Mexico's prohibition-related violence as the death toll since December 2006, when President Calderon called in the army, has now topped 15,000. The latest victims include a US soldier gunned down in a Ciudad Juárez strip club with five other people.