Bodies are cut up and dumped in acid. Victims are stripped naked and hung from bridges. Others have their tongues cut out before being murdered -- Mexican gangs are using horrifying methods to outdo each other in an already harrowing drugs war.
Drug cartel hitmen have massacred some 70 people in the past 10 days in Tijuana on the U.S.-Mexico border, once a freewheeling city serving Americans tequila, cheap medicines and sex that is being devastated by the war.Mexico's government says most of the recent victims belonged to Tijuana's Arellano Felix family cartel that won notoriety in the 1990s for smuggling tons of cocaine into California and for its ruthless elimination of enemies.But it has been weakened in recent years with former leaders killed or arrested, and other cartels are moving in to take control of the drugs trade in Tijuana and throughout the border state of Baja California.
"The Arellano Felix cartel no longer has control of drug trafficking in Tijuana, rival gangs are coming into the plaza," said Baja California's police chief, Daniel de la Rosa.In one of the nastiest mass executions in the city, hitmen dumped 16 bodies across Tijuana, some with their tongues cut out, late last month. Days later, police found a barrel suspected of containing human remains in acid with a message from a gang threatening to make more "soup" of rivals.Since the drug war exploded in 2006, Tijuana has become one of Mexico's most violence cities.President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of troops in the city, which lies across the border from San Diego, but they have not stopped the killings and he is bogged down in a search for new strategies to halt the relentless violence across Mexico.