WILL BORDER VIOLENCE EVER STOP?

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- The mysterious machinations of a drug kingpin
serving time in a Mexico City prison cell could have an unlikely
effect, federal officials say: peace along the border.

Osiel Cardenas Guillen, who is believed to run Mexico's violent Gulf
Cartel from prison, orchestrating from afar much of the drug war that
has claimed 120 lives here this year alone, is trying to oust one of
his deputies, U.S. law officers say.

And the infighting his efforts have caused could radically alter the
deadly dynamics between the cartel and its archrival, the Sinaloa
Cartel, possibly quelling their bloody war over drug-smuggling routes
and eventually bringing an end to the killing.

The rift is centered over control of the border cities of Reynosa and
Matamoros but apparently also pits cartel leaders willing to cooperate
with the rival Sinaloa Cartel against hardliners who will tolerate no
such truce.

Osiel Cardenas Guillen, head of the Matamoras-based Gulf Cartel, who
continues to run the organization from his cell in Las Palmas prison
near Mexico City. He wants to oust one of his deputies ...

Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, who oversees Gulf Cartel operations in
Reynosa and Matamoras. Cardenas wants to replace him with ...

Jaime Gonzalez Duran, who's reputed to be second in command of the
Zetas, a group formed by Mexican army deserters that functions as the
cartel's enforcement arm. A U.S. investigator compared Gonzalez to Al
Pacino's hard-hearted character in the film 'Scarface.'

There are no signs of a slowdown in the battle for Nuevo Laredo.
Mexican Gen. Alvaro Moreno, who previously oversaw all law enforcement
operations here, repeatedly during his tenure attributed many of the
executions to infighting between bands loyal to the Gulf Cartel.

But for this beleaguered city, the possibility of a future truce is a
sliver of light in the darkness.

The Gulf Cartel is led by Cardenas, who was arrested in 2003 but
continues to give orders from his cell in the maximum-security Las
Palmas prison outside Mexico City, officials believe.

Mexican officials refuse to discuss the drug cartel violence on the
record for fear of retribution. The Mexican attorney general's office
referred all questions about the cartels to Deputy Attorney General
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who wasn't available.

But federal officials on both sides of the border say they have
intelligence dating to December or earlier pointing to a shake-up in
the upper echelons of the Matamoros-based Gulf Cartel.

A number of incidents since then have emerged as evidence that an
internal dispute still is playing out, U.S. officials said.

The rift stems from Cardenas' desire to oust one of his deputies,
Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, said one knowledgeable U.S. law enforcement
investigator based on the border who spoke on condition of anonymity
because of diplomatic concerns.

Sauceda, nicknamed "El Goyo," oversees Gulf Cartel operations in
Reynosa and Matamoros. A known alcoholic and drug user who may be
dying of cancer, Sauceda was "losing sight of the business," the
investigator said.

Tapped to take over Sauceda's role is a man known as "El Humme," Jaime
Gonzalez Duran, the U.S. investigator said. Gonzalez's background
doesn't appear to make him an advocate for peace, but as a loyal
follower of Cardenas, who would focus on making money instead of body
counts for his boss.

Gonzalez is reputed to be the second-in-command of the "Zetas," a
group formed by Mexican army deserters that functions as the
enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. According to documents from
Mexico's Secretariat of Defense, Gonzalez deserted the army in late
1998 or early 1999.

In contrast to Sauceda, the U.S. investigator compared Gonzalez to Al
Pacino's hard-hearted character in the film "Scarface."

"Hummer would be ruthless enough not to lose control," he
said.

The first round between Gonzalez and Sauceda may have been fought Dec.
13. Veteran Mexican journalist Alberto Najar reported in the newspaper
La Jornada that a grenade exploded that day in a Reynosa drug house
run by Sauceda. Men working for Gonzalez tossed it, Najar reported.

The General Bravo six The town of General Bravo sits on one of the
tributaries that feeds El Cuchillo reservoir in the Mexican state of
Nuevo Leon, just off a major highway that connects Reynosa and Monterrey.

A second U.S. law enforcement officer said the first clue of an
organizational split came with a grisly discovery there March 26.

Authorities found six men -- bound, blindfolded and shot to death --
in a pickup, the engine still running. Five of the bodies were tossed
in the truck bed.

The sixth was in the cab, and a sheet of paper on the dashboard had a
note: "This is a message for those in the Gulf Cartel, traitorous pals."

The killings didn't have the markings of a usual cartel hit, and the
investigation itself took a strange but revealing turn.

According to reports published in El Norte, a prominent Monterrey
newspaper that followed the incident closely, four of the six victims
were from Sinaloa, the home state of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's cartel.

They were all cousins, and their leader, Lamberto Torres Ochoa, moved
large quantities of drugs from Saltillo to Reynosa, Mexican
authorities told the newspaper.

Initially, investigators assumed the Sinaloans were killed for working
for the rival Gulf Cartel.

But the probe revealed the men were held, tortured and executed in
Reynosa before being driven to General Bravo, sources told El Norte.
Police found an additional 80 bullet casings where the truck was found.

The second U.S. investigator said members of the Sinaloa Cartel --
possibly including the General Bravo six -- apparently were working in
Matamoros and Reynosa, which couldn't happen without the blessing of
some in the Gulf Cartel.

"Some (Gulf Cartel leaders) want to work with the Alliance," the
investigator said, referring to a loose coalition of drug gangs that's
helping the Sinaloa Cartel battle for control of Nuevo Laredo.

Others in the Gulf leadership disagreed and made an example of the
Sinaloans for the edification of the opposing Gulf faction, the U.S.
official speculated.

The conflict is developing in Reynosa and Matamoros, but it could
reshape what is happening in Nuevo Laredo, the epicenter of border
drug violence, if a faction willing to seek a truce grabs the Gulf
Cartel's reins.

Even the narcos are becoming fatigued with the endless killings, the
federal investigator said.

Going public? The most recent sign of a cartel rift may have been an
interview with drug traffickers that aired on KRGV-TV in the Rio
Grande Valley last week, officials said.

Two men who identified themselves as Zetas met with reporter Tony
Castelan for a 20-minute interview at a cheap motel in the Valley.

The men, who were not named and whose faces were obscured for the
broadcast, said they came forward because they were tired of the Gulf
Cartel's excesses and carelessness that had claimed the lives of
innocent bystanders, including children.

They detailed how the Zetas kidnap and kill their enemies -- claiming
they sometimes feed victims to a tiger -- and said the group currently
is based in Ciudad Camargo, across from Rio Grande City.

The men also said there were Zeta cells in Texas -- in Mission, Rio
Grande City and Roma.

"I realized there were a lot of injustices they were committing," one
of the men said in the interview.

It was the first known news interview with Zetas -- members of a group
that has a history of silencing and censoring journalists through
intimidation -- on either side of the border.

"That in itself is suspect, that the Zetas would even allow someone to
speak to the press," said Jorge Cisneros, an FBI special agent based
in McAllen.

Cisneros reserved judgment on the authenticity of the interview
subjects. But some sources speculate that the supposed Zetas who
appeared in the video are involved in the power struggle.

Narco PR If so, did they break a cardinal rule of the Zetas and speak
to a reporter to draw negative attention to cells loyal to "El Goyo"
Sauceda?

"In the intel community it remains to be seen whether this is the
actual truth," Cisneros said.

But U.S. officials agreed much of the information in the KRGV
interview was "on the mark," as one of them put it.

It once would have been considered bizarre, but the Zeta interview is
among a recent spate of apparent public relations efforts by drug
cartel leaders.

Days after the KRGV interview, one of the leaders of the Sinaloa
Cartel who is leading his organization's push to take over Nuevo
Laredo, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, released an open letter to the next
president of Mexico through a newspaper advertisement.

The Laredo-born Valdez, known as "La Barbe," blamed the Zetas for
killings in Nuevo Leon state that had been pinned on him.

The letter accused the Zetas of having the Mexican government's
anti-organized-crime office in their pocket, and it asked whoever is
elected President Vicente Fox's successor on July 2 to apply the law
"in an equal manner."

"I don't intend to make myself look like a white dove, or to clean my
image, as I am aware of what I have done and of what I am
responsible," the letter read in part. "I'm just alerting (about the)
great cancer that the Zetas represent."

In another well-publicized move, huge celebrations of National
Children's Day held in Reynosa and Piedras Negras last month,
featuring free food, toys and entertainment, were publicly credited to
Cardenas, the imprisoned leader of the Gulf Cartel.

"It's not very common for them to be so public," said Jorge Chabat, a
Mexico City-based political scientist and expert on organized crime.

He surmised that Cardenas' and the KRGV interview had to do more with
psychology than strategy.

"Maybe it was a way to clear their conscience," Chabat said.