ALWAYS ON GUARD IN NUEVO LAREDO

Vicious Drug War In Mexican City Is Spilling Across The Border,
Threatening Commerce; Even Police Are Afraid

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- Police Cmdr. Carlos Moreno and a weary squad
of local officers stopped for a quick lunch near the downtown
financial district here one day last week. But no one ate until
Officer Adrian Lopez, cradling his AR-15 rifle, was posted at the cafe door.

In the shadow of the U.S. border, lunch has become a life-threatening
proposition for Nuevo Laredo police. They increasingly are being
targeted in an unprecedented surge of violence between warring drug
cartels that has redefined life here and in Laredo, Texas, just
across the muddy Rio Grande.

Two weeks ago, five Nuevo Laredo police officers were wounded when
masked gunmen attacked a seafood restaurant. A few weeks earlier,
four Mexican federal agents were assassinated on a busy downtown street here.

Besides making this one of the deadliest places in North America,
such brazen killings -- and the inescapable sense that violence could
break out at any moment -- have underscored the challenge the U.S.
government faces in trying to improve border security and limit the
flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into the USA.

The instability in this city of about 330,000 has made the USA
increasingly attractive not just for Mexicans seeking a better life,
but also for marijuana, cocaine and heroin traffickers who have begun
to set up safe houses and makeshift weapons manufacturing sites on
the U.S. side of the border, says Elias Bazan, the top agent in
Laredo for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The chaos in Mexico has "started to spill over here," says Bazan,
whose agency formed an unusual working relationship with Mexican law
enforcement and military authorities last fall to try to curb
violence and weapons trafficking.

As President Bush aims to put up to 6,000 National Guard troops on
the Southwest border to deter illegal immigration, the disorder here
- -- near one of the USA's busiest entry points -- touches virtually
every aspect of border security:

The battle between the "Gulf" and "Sinaloa" drug cartels is
threatening to disrupt one of the major commerce routes into the USA.
The cartels have sought to piggyback loads of drugs and even illegal
immigrants onto some of the 6,000 to 7,000 trucks that carry a wide
range of merchandise into the USA from Nuevo Laredo each day, says
Rick Flores, the sheriff in Webb County, Texas, where Laredo is the
county seat.

Drug seizures and detentions of illegal immigrants on the U.S. side
of the border are continuing to rise, according to Flores' department
and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Local deputies have
seized $6.4 million worth of narcotics this year, Flores says, up
from $4.4 million at the same time last year.

Meanwhile, arrests of illegal immigrants in the Laredo area are on
pace to top the 75,330 caught in 2005, according to the CBP.

Flores isn't optimistic that Bush's plan to post thousands of
National Guard troops along the border will do much to help
authorities overwhelmed by the flow of immigrants and by increasing
concerns about security. "What are they gonna do when they get here?"
he says. "They have no law enforcement powers."

Long a destination for tourists from across Texas, the Laredo border
area has seen its popularity decline amid the violence. Convention
business is down 25% this year compared with 2005, and the number of
weekend visitors is off by at least 30%, says Ramon Hernandez of the
Convention and Visitors Bureau in Laredo, a blue-collar city of 203,000.

On the grittier Mexican side of the border, the landmark Victoria
restaurant has closed its doors. Seor Frog's, once a popular hangout
for American visitors, is shuttered, as are many other gift and
curiosity shops along Guerrero Street.

Flores says he no longer travels to the Mexican side, where he has
many relatives. "I fear for my life" in Nuevo Laredo, he says. Drug
cartels "have no respect for law enforcement. They don't care about life."

There have been 110 slayings this year in Nuevo Laredo, a homicide
rate far above those of major U.S. cities and ahead of Nuevo Laredo's
record pace of 2005, when there were 176 slayings, Flores says.
Laredo has had 10 homicides this year.

In Nuevo Laredo, "there is a war" going on, city police Lt. Mario
Espino Rodriguez says. "Nobody can control it."

Guillermo Marquez, Nuevo Laredo's assistant police chief, was meeting
with Laredo Police Chief Agustin Dovalina on the U.S. side of the
border two weeks ago when Marquez's cellphone chirped with an urgent
message: Five Nuevo Laredo officers had been shot during an ambush at
the Titanic seafood restaurant.

Marquez, who was in Laredo on behalf of his underfunded squad to seek
donations of police supplies -- body armor, gun belts and uniforms --
rushed back to Mexico. The officers survived the shooting, but it
marked an escalation of violence that included six slayings on May 8,
a day the Laredo Morning Times dubbed "Deadly Monday."

The first slayings that day occurred at a pharmacy near Santo Nio,
the city's landmark Catholic church, and just two blocks from the
International Bridge. Gunmen stormed the pharmacy and killed the
14-year-old son of the owner and another person, in what Dovalina
says was a dispute over local drug sales involving the cartels.

"These people are ruthless," Dovalina says, adding that violence in
Nuevo Laredo has escalated as the cartels have enlisted violent gang
members as enforcers.

He says the Sinaloa cartel is being aided by Mara Salvatrucha
(MS-13), a Central American gang that has a reputation for brutality
and is a growing presence in the USA. The Gulf group has been aided
by the Zetas, a well-armed Mexican militia, Dovalina says.

Beyond a lack of equipment and training in Mexican police units,
border security efforts have been complicated by corruption within
Nuevo Laredo's department, Flores says. Drug cartels have used cash
and intimidation to get protection from local cops, he says.

Last year, new Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez vowed to
fight corruption. He was assassinated hours after taking office.
Dominguez's successor, Omar Pimental, resigned in March after the
entire 800-officer force was suspended temporarily because of
corruption concerns voiced by Mexico's federal government.

A force of about 300 officers was reinstated this spring while a
search for a permanent chief continues by the city and federal
governments. Nuevo Laredo Mayor Daniel Pea says through a spokesman
that an appointment could take several weeks.

Until then, Cmdr. Moreno and Lt. Espino will try to protect interim
Chief Guillermo Landa and Assistant Chief Marquez with patrols around
their homes.

The violence in the Laredo border area has long been confined largely
to the Mexican side, but there are signs that Mexico's problem is
increasingly becoming the United States' problem.

In January, Laredo police and federal agents with U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the ATF made a startling discovery
when they raided a local home: a small assembly line for building
improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Agents recovered two IEDs and materials to build about 33 more, the
ICE and ATF reported. In a separate raid just south of downtown
Laredo, ATF agents seized several machine guns in a home that was
used to make automatic weapons.

The ATF's Bazan says the raids and other evidence have led
authorities in the USA to believe that drug cartel leaders have begun
using Laredo as a safe haven from the fighting on the Mexican side.

Donnie Carter, who as the ATF's top agent in Houston oversees the
Justice Department's project with Mexican authorities, says ATF
officials meet with Mexican law enforcement and military officials
each month to discuss ways to combat drug and weapons trafficking.
The effort helped prompt the weapons raids.

Carter says it's clear that the drug cartels are well funded and well
armed. Because of the widespread corruption on the Mexican side,
Bazan says, it is "difficult to trust anyone" in forming strategies
to improve security.

"One thing you'll notice (about shootings in Mexico) is that it seems
nobody is ever arrested," Bazan says. "The level of fear is very
serious and very high."

His family's new El Rancho restaurant and bar in north Laredo is
doing well, but Sol Manzilla's thoughts often drift to his family's
original El Rancho, which opened in Nuevo Laredo in 1970 and became a
local landmark.

Largely because of the relentless violence, business at the original
El Rancho is down 40% this year, Manzilla says. His family is
struggling to keep it afloat.

"I try to avoid talking about it," Manzilla says, his eyes misting
with tears. "The morale of the people is down. People are afraid to
say anything because they fear they could be targeted."

He says he has seen several businesses that catered to tourism in
Nuevo Laredo close or move to a safer spot on the U.S. side. "I'd
like to invite people to go back," he says. "But how can I?"