13 DIE AS GUN BATTLES JOLT TIJUANA

A Running Firefight Between Apparent Drug Rivals Leaves a Trail of
Bodies and Spent Shell Casings Across the City.

TIJUANA -- In one of the most violent eruptions in the ongoing border
drug war, suspected traffickers clashed on the streets of Tijuana
early Saturday morning in a wild and bloody shootout that left 13
people dead and eight others injured in a series of moving gun battles.

Gunmen began firing on each other with rifles and automatic weapons
in a light industrial area east of the city, according to
authorities, leaving a trail of corpses, spent shell casings and
bullet-riddled vehicles across Tijuana as the triggermen gave chase
to one another.

A security guard patrolling the parking lot of a convenience store
near the initial confrontation on Boulevard Insurgentes, a major
thoroughfare, said the gun battle there raged for at least 10 minutes.

The petrified watchman said he hit the pavement and didn't rise until
long after the shooting had stopped. When it was over, he said, he
saw abandoned vehicles, scattered weapons, broken glass, a
blood-soaked bulletproof vest and several corpses, including one with
its head nearly blown off.

It sounded like a war, he said. "I thank God that I'm OK."

The shootout is just the latest in a spasm of drug-related violence
that has gripped the border town this year. In the first four months
of 2008, Tijuana has seen dozens of kidnappings, assaults and
homicides, including children gunned down in the mayhem.

The violence has had a major economic effect on the city's tourism
business and underscores the larger drug problem facing the Mexican government.

The motive for Saturday's bloodshed was unclear. Police said it could
have been a falling-out between factions of the Arellano Felix
narcotics cartel, which has long controlled the drug trade in the
city. Or it could be another cartel trying to move in on its turf.

Some speculate that the killings may have been revenge by traffickers
against suspected informants.

Still, experts said the recent surge in violence undoubtedly is
linked to a major offensive by authorities against organized-crime
drug traffickers, an operation that has strained delicate alliances
between traffickers who had previously cooperated with one another in
the lucrative narcotics trade.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, in cooperation with state and
local authorities, has sent hundreds of soldiers and federal police
to Tijuana and other trafficking hot spots this year.

Results have been mixed. Although the operation has resulted in
several high-profile arrests and seizures of drugs and weapons
caches, organized crime has responded with ferocity to intimidate
informants and police and to punish rivals suspected of betraying them.

"They are under pressure and turning on each other," said Agustin
Perez Aguilar, spokesman for the public safety department of Baja
California state. "We hope we have a lot more events" like Saturday's.

Some residents and tourists may not agree. The violence has
terrorized Tijuana and other cities, where cartel hit men have all
but abandoned traditional codes of honor, with brazen daylight
attacks and assassinations of children.

In January, gunmen stormed the home of Tijuana Deputy Police Chief
Margarito Saldana Rivera, killing him, his wife and two daughters,
the youngest age 12. A couple and their 3-year-old son were slain the
same week in what was believed to have been a case of mistaken identity.

City Hall was evacuated earlier this year because of a bomb threat.

Public shootouts have sent pedestrians scrambling for cover and
pinned residents in their homes for hours, and tourism has plunged as
fearful U.S. day trippers steer clear of the city's shops,
restaurants and night life.

The situation in Tijuana has grown particularly volatile after a
Mexican general last week publicly identified about three dozen
local, state and federal law enforcement officers who he alleges are
in league with organized crime.

Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito made the claims in an open letter to the
Tijuana daily newspaper Frontera. The explosive charges have caused
such a rift between various levels of law enforcement that Calderon
ordered Aponte, the Baja state governor, its attorney general and its
secretary of public safety to fly to the capital yesterday to meet
with the federal secretary of Defense and secretary of Federal Public
Security, according to Perez.

"They were called by Calderon to settle their differences," Perez
said at a news conference.

The prospect of infighting among the cartels and within law
enforcement has some observers worried about the unintended
consequences of the recent crackdown and whether the violence it has
unleashed can now be contained.

Still, Calderon's efforts have generally been popular with the
Mexican public. And they reflect a heightened level of commitment by
the federal government to neutralize criminals and weed out corrupt
public officials and police, said David Shirk, director of the
Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

"Even though it's bloody, even though it's costly, people like the
fact that the government's standing up," Shirk said.

After Saturday's shootouts, law enforcement officials said they
recovered 54 weapons, 21 vehicles, 45 magazines of heavy-caliber
ammunition and 1,500 spent shells at five locations around Tijuana.

A resident who lives near the site of the initial confrontation on
Boulevard Insurgentes said the ground appeared to be paved with spent
shells after the shooting ended.

Surveying the carnage after it was all over, he said he was struck by
how young and heavily armed some of the victims were. He said one
fallen gunman had a revolver in each hand, an AK-47 slung over his
shoulder and an AR-15 rifle at his side.

"He was very well-armed, but it didn't save him," the man said.
"There were just too many attackers."