DRUG-WAR VIOLENCE SPREADS

MEXICO CITY -- As drug wars raged along other parts of the
U.S.-Mexican border, things had been mostly quiet in the Sonoran town
of Agua Prieta.

Not anymore.

Assassins gunned down Police Chief Ramon Tacho Verdugo this week,
spraying more than 40 bullets at him in an ambush outside police
headquarters in the town, near Douglas, Ariz.

The motive is murky, but it almost certainly involved control of the
smuggling routes into Arizona, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

"Rival organizations are vying for control of these lucrative
corridors," said Ramona Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration. Tacho's slaying "is a reminder of how
violent these criminal organizations are, and they will continue to
use whatever means they need."

Tacho's death followed a number of drug-related killings in Agua
Prieta and the arrest of Carlos "Calichi" Molinares from nearby Naco
on drug-smuggling charges in Tucson on Dec. 9.

State and city police were on high alert and patrolling Agua Prieta
for fear of further violence, said Jose Larrinaga, a spokesman for
the Sonora attorney general.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano was "very concerned" about the attack
and asked federal and state law enforcement officials to meet with
border sheriffs to exchange information about border violence, said
Dennis Burke, her chief of staff.

Agua Prieta joins a growing list of Mexican cities where hit men have
gunned down police chiefs. At least 12 have died in the past year,
including top lawmen in the border cities of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

On Wednesday, gunmen firing AR-15 automatic rifles killed Abraham
Farias, a state police officer in Monterrey and former head of the
SWAT team in Nuevo Leon state. He was the eighth police officer
killed in or near Monterrey this year.

His slaying came shortly after the Mexican government sent hundreds
of soldiers and federal police to Nuevo Leon to crack down on drug gangs.

The killings have many police thinking twice about taking the top
post. The Sonoran town of Naco, for example, has had 12 police chiefs
in the past three years. The last one to resign was Tacho's brother,
Roberto Tacho Verdugo.

Fatal attack

Ramon Tacho looked the part of the Wild West sheriff: cowboy hats and
Western shirts, big belt buckles and wide mustache. He had a talent
for music and had recorded an album of traditional Mexican music and
corridos, romantic cowboy-style ballads.

That style helped make him one of Agua Prieta's most high-profile
officials, said Ray Borane, mayor of Douglas, which lies just across
the border.

Tacho was head of Sonora's state detective force before becoming
police chief in Naco, then in Cananea.

He took over Agua Prieta's police force in September. Borane said
Tacho was a good lawman and had made some important arrests.

On Monday, Tacho was walking to his car with a group of aides at
about 5 p.m. when a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Jeep Liberty roared up
to police headquarters.

Gunmen inside the vehicles opened fire with AR-15 assault rifles,
firing more than 40 bullets at the police chief, said Larrinaga of
the Sonora Attorney General's Office.

Tacho was hit in the chest, stomach and leg. Another bullet grazed a
paramedic at the nearby Red Cross headquarters.

Police returned fire, and the two vehicles sped off.

The Grand Cherokee was found abandoned a few streets away. Tacho
underwent emergency surgery at Agua Prieta's Latino Hospital but died
about 90 minutes after the attack, Larrinaga said.

Frequent targets

It was the most brazen assassination in Agua Prieta since gunmen
killed the regional commander of the Federal Preventive Police in July 2003.

The Arizona border had been mostly quiet since that killing, even as
battles raged between drug lords in Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana and other
border points.

Police commanders are frequent targets in those places. In June,
gunmen killed Nuevo Laredo's police chief less than seven hours after
he took the job. In November, an assistant police chief in Tijuana
was found shot and dismembered near police headquarters.

The Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman controls territory
along the Arizona border. That cartel has struck an alliance with the
neighboring Juarez cartel, leading to relative peace along Arizona's
southeastern border.

But on Jan. 19, Tacho's officers arrested a Sinaloa man on charges of
carrying out the execution-style slaying of two men in an Agua Prieta
backyard on Jan. 3. And on Thursday, two drug-smuggling suspects were
found dead, their faces slashed with a knife or razor.

Larrinaga said it was still too early to tell whether Tacho's death
was part of a broader drug war in the area. He said murders statewide
have declined in the past year.

"We can't consider this a red flag yet," Larrinaga said.

Contributing: Sergio Solache