3 KILLINGS MAY SIGNAL BATTLE FOR TIJUANA DRUG CORRIDOR

MONTERREY, Mexico -- The bodies of three men who were executed
gangland-style were found Tuesday morning in Tijuana, raising fears
that a bloody war for control over the drug-smuggling corridor on the
U.S.-Mexico border may be underway.

Although the three victims, whose ages were believed to be between 30
and 35, had not been identified as of late Tuesday, the slayings bore
similarities with past drug killings.

The victims had apparently been tortured. At least one was found with
a plastic bag over his head, and the men's arms and legs were bound
with gray duct tape. One of the dead had two bullet wounds, and the
other two had apparently been beaten to death, Tijuana law enforcement
sources said. A nervous Tijuana was rattled by gunfire Tuesday
afternoon in the middle-class Los Olivos neighborhood, scene of past
violent exchanges and killings. The gunfire was near the exclusive
Hipodromo and Chapultepec areas, where the Arellano Felix cartel
recruited many of its young assassins--called "narco juniors"--from
the Tijuana elite.

Police released few details, saying only that two people were injured
by gunfire, one critically.

The bodies of the executed men were found in different parts of
Tijuana between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Coincidentally, city officials from Medellin, Colombia, arrived in
Tijuana on Tuesday to propose that the two cities racked by drug
violence become sister cities. Tijuana Mayor Jesus Gonzalez Reyes said
he was receptive to the idea, saying Medellin had overcome the stigma
of being a "cartel" town and that its experience "will help us because
Tijuana and its people do not deserve to be thought of as such."

Authorities have been anticipating a battle for control of the border
drug corridor since the family-dominated Arellano Felix cartel of
Tijuana was hit with a one-two punch: the arrest of Benjamin Arellano
Felix on March 9 and the death of his brother Ramon on Feb. 10.

The battle could pit the remaining members of the clan against the
forces of Ismael Zambada, a violent Sinaloa state smuggler long
aligned with the Juarez cartel who has been trying to make inroads in
Baja California state in recent years.

Baja California authorities suspect Zambada of ordering the slaying of
Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre in 2000 and of Tijuana
attorney Joaquin Baez Lugo, who reportedly had represented Arellano
Felix interests, in November 1999.

Baez's law associate Rodolfo Carrillo Barragan was gunned down in his
condominium parking garage March 11, two days after Benjamin Arellano
Felix's arrest in Puebla in central Mexico.