CARTELS TARGETING TOP POLITICIANS, FAMILIES WITH DEATH THREATS

MEXICO CITY - Having terrorized police and prosecutors across the
country, Mexico's drug cartels are escalating their battle with the
government by turning their sights on politicians. The most recent
threat target is the governor of Chihuahua state, which borders Texas.

"Mr. Governor," reads a banner that was hung last week near his
mother's home in Delicias, "put things in order or we will kill your family."

The mother of Gov. José Reyes Baeza lives about 200 yards from where
the banner was posted along a major thoroughfare, authorities said.
The governor's office is in nearby Chihuahua City.

Analysts said the Chihuahua threat was an ominous sign that
trafficking groups are seeking to influence new levels of Mexico's
political structure. The cartels have previously been accused of
trying to influence municipal elections by contributing to political
campaigns and threatening local politicians who refuse to cooperate with them.

"This is the most public threat made against a governor, but we know
other governors have been threatened as well because they have said
so," said Alfredo Quijano, editor of Norte newspaper in Ciudad
Juárez, the epicenter of Mexico's drug violence.

The latest threat comes on the heels of the apparent gangland slaying
last month of Mayor Marcelo Ibarra of Villa Madero, Michoacán.
Another civic leader, City Council member Mario Espinosa of Acuña,
Coahuila, was killed late last year at his home across the border in
Del Rio, Texas.

"We are headed toward a narco state if things don't change," said
Arturo Yañez, who trains prosecutors at an academy in Mexico City and
served as an adviser to the federal attorney general's office in the
1990s. "These criminal organizations are now fully integrated into
these communities economically and politically."

The federal government has insisted that it is winning the war
against the cartels and that the record levels of violence are signs
of traffickers' desperation. Cartel propaganda, including banners
targeting the military and police, could be part of that response.

The banner hung in Chihuahua demanded the removal of a police
commander whom the authors suggested was responsible "for all the
deaths in the state."

Threatened officials have said they are targeted for supporting
President Felipe Calderón's crackdown on organized crime since he
took office on Dec. 1, 2006. Mr. Calderón, who belongs to a different
political party than Mr. Baeza, called the governor over the weekend
in a show of solidarity.

"They spoke concerning this matter of the threat against the
governor's family, and my understanding is that President Calderón
offered all of his support," Chihuahua government spokesman Carlos
Alcántara said in a telephone interview.

In an earlier statement, the governor's office called on the media
not to report on the printed threat, which it said "has the goal of
terrorizing members of the police forces and public officials who
participate in the fight against organized crime."

The state government, the statement said, "took the opportunity to
implement necessary security measures" and "will continue its
participation as part of its joint operations with the federal
government, the results of which up until now have been encouraging."

Chihuahua is in the midst of a bloody turf war among the local Ciudad
Juárez-based cartel and outside groups seeking to control drug routes
into the U.S., authorities say. More than 500 people have died in the
state in drug violence this year.

The Delicias banner could be the work of outside groups from Sinaloa
state seeking to displace the Juárez cartel and anyone seen as its
protectors, said Mr. Quijano, the Norte editor.

"This is part of a media war, using banners, Internet messages, text
messages sent to cellular phones, telephone threats, painted walls," he said.

"The threat is made against specific individuals," he said, "but it's
also designed to terrorize the entire population" by suggesting that
anyone who defies the cartels - including businessmen who must pay
for "protection" or families negotiating ransom - could pay with their lives.

Not an isolated incident Recent threats and attacks against Mexican
politicians include:

July 11: A handmade banner threatens the family of Chihuahua Gov.
José Reyes Baeza if changes are not made in state law enforcement personnel.

June 1: An armed group kills Mayor Marcelo Ibarra of Villa Madero,
Michoacán, as he travels along a state highway.

November 2007: Gunmen kill a mayoral candidate and former mayor, Juan
Guajardo, and five others outside a restaurant in Rio Bravo, near
McAllen, Texas.

September 2007:

City Council member Mario Espinosa of Acuña, Coahuila, is killed
outside his Texas home after leaving his bodyguards on the Mexican
side of the border and crossing the international bridge into Del
Rio. May 2007: Four bodyguards protecting the children of Mexico
state Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto are shot to death in the Gulf Coast
state of Veracruz. Later, a "narco-message" is left threatening the governor.

February 2007: A federal congressman and former mayor, Horacio Garza,
is injured and his driver killed in an attack in Nuevo Laredo.