MEXICO OFFICIAL RESIGNS OVER DRUG CARTELS BATTLE

Noe Ramirez Mandujano, a Deputy Attorney General, Had Come Under
Pressure Because of Poor Government Results.

MEXICO CITY -- A high-ranking official in the Mexican attorney
general's office has resigned under pressure amid poor results in the
nation's battle against kidnappers and drug traffickers.

Noe Ramirez Mandujano had served for 20 months as deputy attorney
general in charge of the Office for Special Investigation Into
Organized Crime before tendering his resignation Wednesday.

Violence has exploded across large swaths of Mexico as drug gangs
fight for control of lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

More than 2,300 people have died this year in Mexico in
narcotics-related violence, according to a July 18 body count by the
national daily Reforma.

On Thursday, police in the western Mexican state of Jalisco found six
members of a family shot to death in a house in the town of Zapotlan
el Grande.

All had been shot in the back of the head, media reports said -- the
calling card of drug executioners. The victims included three
children, the youngest a 7-year-old girl.

A shake-up in the attorney general's office had been rumored since an
alleged high-ranking operative for the Juarez cartel briefly escaped
from the agency's custody in June. Pedro Sanchez Arras, known as "the
Tiger," managed to flee the National Arraignment Center, a Mexico City
lockup under the direction of the federal prosecutor's office.

The alleged drug trafficker was quickly recaptured by agents who found
him hiding in a building not far from the arraignment center. But his
ability to elude dozens of guards raised speculation about corruption
within the ranks of the attorney general's office and its ability to
secure its own detention facilities.

In April, the alleged leader of a kidnapping gang died in the custody
of the Office for Special Investigation Into Organized Crime. The
agency said that Asael Alejandre Roldan committed suicide by hanging
himself with his jacket. But a videotape obtained by local media
showed Roldan dressed only in a T-shirt and jeans at the time of his
arrest, raising suspicions about the circumstances surrounding his
death.

Corrupt, poorly paid and ill-trained police have hampered efforts to
vanquish the cartels.

In the southern state of Campeche, 50 state and local police officers
have resigned this week, according to the national daily El Universal.
The officers cited low salaries and fear of the increasingly violent
and better-armed drug assassins operating on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

The story is much the same in northern Mexico. In Lerdo, Durango
state, 30 police officers have quit in the last few days and at least
120 more are threatening to unless they get better pay, equipment and
life insurance.

On Monday, suspected drug cartel hit men attacked a police station in
Lerdo, killing four officers, according to media reports. The rugged,
largely rural state of Durango is part of the so-called Golden
Triangle of narcotics trafficking that also includes the states of
Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

The rising toll of innocents, particularly children, has alarmed the
nation. Some question the government's hard-line strategy of sending
army troops and federal police into drug hot spots, which they say is
fueling the mayhem.

"This is a state without control, incapable at a local or national
level of combating the narcos," said Juan Guerra, a federal
legislator. "There is no strategy for the struggle against this."