IN MEXICO, A BRUTAL WEEK IN A YEAR ALREADY FULL OF BLOODSHED

MEXICO CITY - A Monterrey police officer was gunned down in her patrol
car Friday, hours after a state police commander was killed nearby.
The deaths came three days after a hail of gunfire directed at a
jewelry shop killed another officer, his wife, a bystander and the
shop owner. But the violence this week was not limited to Monterrey.

Mexican officials seized $205.6 million in cash from a luxurious house in
one of Mexico City's most upscale neighborhoods on Friday. The money was
believed to be tied to the meth trade. The body of an El Paso resident was
discovered Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. A
former military general survived an assassination attempt Wednesday in the
Gulf state of Tabasco. A head was left outside the state security office
Thursday near the Tabasco capital of Villahermosa.

And so went one of the bloodiest weeks of drug hits in Mexican
history. More than 50 people, many of them police officers, were
gunned down throughout the week, signaling a renewed surge in violence
and more brazen tactics by drug traffickers as they reassemble and
secure territories to distribute illegal drugs.

To do that, they generally target police officers, some of them
corrupt agents working for rival cartels. Of the 470 people killed
this year in drug-related violence, 58 have been police officers,
according to Jose Arturo Yanez Romero, a crime expert at Mexico City's
Police Formation Institute. That's an average of six people a day
killed since the start of the year. "This is the bloodiest week in
Mexico, particularly against police officers," said Mr. Yanez, who
cited figures from Mexico City's El Universal newspaper. "And it will
only get worse."

President Felipe Calderon said the violence is a backlash against a
crackdown he initiated shortly after taking office Dec. 1. More than
24,000 federal police and soldiers have been sent to eight drug
strongholds across the country. Although the show is impressive, no
big kingpins have fallen. "We have launched a frontal fight against
organized crime. We are not going to leave our lives in the hands of
criminals," Mr. Calderon said. "We are fighting to save our children
from the talons of drugs and the danger of organized crime."

The violence comes in the same week that President Bush vowed to
reduce U.S. demand for drugs, which he in part blamed for the drug
violence in Mexico. "I made it very clear to the president that I
recognize the United States has a responsibility in the fight against
drugs," Mr. Bush said during his visit with Mr. Calderon. "And one
major responsibility is to encourage people to use less drugs."

The immensity of the drug trade was laid out in the form of more than
$200 million in cash that was seized by police in Mexico City's plush
Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.

The stacks and stacks of $100 bills were laid next to 200 thousand
euros and 157,000 pesos in dramatic photos released by the attorney
general's office Friday. Seven people were arrested.

Meanwhile, the wave of shootings has prompted mass police resignations
in several key states - among them, more than 300 in Nuevo Leon and
dozens more in the state of Chihuahua, two states that border Texas,
26 in the northwestern state of Sonora.

Monte Alejandro Rubidio Garcia, an undersecretary at the Public Safety
Ministry, warned that drug kingpins will not "give in so easily."
"They will battle hand-in-hand to defend their territory," he said, as
viable drug smuggling routes become fewer and more hotly contested.
Mr. Rubidio Garcia said the killings are a "reflection that the
crackdown is a success because the criminal structures are cracking,"
but he added that it will be "extremely difficult" for the crime wave
to subside this year. Critics say Mr. Calderon's achievements are
superficial. "This isn't so much about a response to the government's
crackdown," Mr. Yanez said. "This is about cartels flexing their
muscles and securing distribution routes. Drug trafficking is so
lucrative - we're talking billions and billions of dollars - that the
government cannot make a dent."

The government's strategy, according to Alfredo Quijano, editor of the
Norte de Ciudad Juarez newspaper, "is not to dismantle the cartels, or
finish them off, but rather to force them to the negotiating table to
talk. Business, meantime, goes on, but at a greater cost to human
life," he said, noting that 63 people have been killed in Juarez this
year. But the worst part of the killings, said Mr. Yanez, is this:
"There is total impunity. No one has been arrested. It's open season
on cops, and no one seems to give a damn."

Staff writer Laurence Iliff contributed to this report.