ECHOES OF COLOMBIA IN MEXICO DRUG WAR

Cartels Up Stakes With High-Profile Killings of Officials

MEXICO CITY -- On the home turf of Mexico's deadliest drug cartels,
they hang banners that mock Mexican authorities trying to maintain
order. "Little tin soldiers, federal officers made of straw," read
one banner in the state of Sinaloa.

But a more powerful message is coming in the brazen and widespread
burst of murders, much of it geared toward law-enforcement officials,
that has shaken even the most hardened Mexican in recent days.

Even as the body counts spiral in northwestern Mexico, a single
killing in Mexico City raised the stakes. Edgar Millan Gomez, acting
national police chief, was assassinated at home last week, the
highest-ranking official to be killed since President Felipe Calderon
took office in 2006.

Millan Gomez's death, a coolly efficient hit in the nation's
political and symbolic heart, has raised stark comparisons that
Mexico could be heading the way of Colombia of the 1990s, when chunks
of territory were out of government control and the indiscriminate
killings of police chiefs, judges and prosecutors became commonplace.

This critical juncture for Mexico comes as the U.S. Congress is set
to vote this week on the Merida Initiative, a $550 million anti-crime
aid package. Bush administration officials say the recent violence
shows the urgency for the proposal.

Infiltrating the ranks But Mexican authorities said Monday that
Millan Gomez's slaying was an inside job organized by the Sinaloa
cartel. The murder has bolstered skeptics from both U.S. political
parties who have questioned whether aid from the Merida Initiative
could end up in the wrong hands.

At a news conference Monday, reporters asked Calderon whether he
might need to reassess his get-tough approach, which includes the
deployment of about 25,000 military troops and federal police to trouble spots.

"Those who insinuate that the government should back away from this
strategy are those who would see us abandon journalists, citizens,
businessmen, farmers and youth to the clutches of crime," Calderon said.

The United States has backed Calderon's efforts because Mexico is the
primary corridor for cocaine and marijuana that enter the U.S. Also,
violent clashes between drug traffickers often spill into the U.S.,
but Mexico has seen some successes, including the extradition of
dozens of criminals to the U.S.

Law-enforcement officials expected a violent backlash, but the
governor of Sinaloa said the recent clashes are the worst in recent memory.

More than 1,000 Mexicans have died this year in violence tied to
organized crime. Security analyst Ana Maria Salazar said the new
element is the killing of high-ranking law-enforcement officials.

In addition to Millan Gomez, the No. 2 police official in Ciudad
Juarez was slain Saturday in the border city. A week earlier, a
federal intelligence official was killed in Mexico City.

Mexican authorities reported Monday night the arrests of six men tied
to the Sinaloa cartel in the murder of Millan Gomez, the nation's top
police official. Millan Gomez had helped coordinate the arrests of
several associates of the cartel's Beltran Leyva family.

Authorities said a lone gunman had been waiting inside Millan Gomez's
home. Police immediately arrested Alejandro Ramirez, 34. It was
apparently an inside job: One of the masterminds was a federal police
officer who had worked in Sinaloa, authorities said.

Jorge Fernandez, a columnist in Excelsior newspaper, is one of
several analysts to begin comparing Mexico with Colombia in the
1990s. He noted that it wasn't until Colombia cartels broke every
barrier of society that they were eventually neutralized.

"The lessons are useful," Fernandez wrote. "What we are living in
these sinister weeks and months appear to be part of a similar
process that Colombia endured."

Salazar, a former U.S. Defense Department official who helped craft
American military policy in Colombia during the 1990s, said the
comparison is not entirely accurate but worries that Mexico is
getting closer to that dangerous situation.

"At this point, the criminal organizations really feel they can get
away with murder," she said. "Once the cartels decide to
systematically kill cops and there is not going to be any
consequences, that's what happened in Colombia."

Several risks Erubiel Tirado, director of national security studies
at Iberoamerican University in Mexico City, said the Millan Gomez
slaying showed Calderon needs to move faster.

"You can't go back in midstream, but they need to re-evaluate their
strategy because it is clearly not working," Tirado said. "The fact
that we have such infiltration in the police structures that you can
buy or threaten someone at the highest levels, it shows a great
vulnerability of the state itself."

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also hinted this week
at deeper risks, saying the resurgent violence shows a threat to
Mexico's "democratic institutions."

While Bush aides see the spate of killings as reason to approve the
Merida Initiative, some lawmakers are not so sure. Congressional
aides say they expect the measure to come up this week.

Tim Rieser, an aide to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of
the Senate subcommittee that funds foreign aid programs, said Millan
Gomez's murder illustrates that any aid request must include strict
American oversight. The slaying "shows the need to help Mexico but it
also shows the importance of conditionality and accountability to
ensure that U.S. funds don't end up in the wrong hands," Rieser said.

For now, Mexican officials are moving forward with their offensive.

Calderon dispatched a security working group of Cabinet members to
Sinaloa on Tuesday and deployed nearly 3,000 more troops there.

James Jones, former U.S. ambassador to the country, said that Mexico
is not the ideal partner but that the U.S. must be supportive. He
recalled passing intelligence on a drug lord to Mexican authorities
in the 1990s and being told "that there are only five people in the
whole department they could trust."

"As long as Calderon really keeps up this commitment, I don't think
Mexico will be a Colombia," Jones said. " We have to help him."