TOLL MOUNTS IN MEXICO'S DRUG WAR

A Newspaper Editor And Police Chief Are Among The Latest Victims.
More Than 2,000 Have Died This Year, Reports Say.

MEXICO CITY -- The death toll in Mexico's drug war has surpassed
2,000 this year, with a newspaper editor found dead in the resort
city of Zihuatanejo and a police commander assassinated in Tijuana
apparently among the latest victims, according to news reports.

Another police commander was killed Monday in the northern city of
Monterrey, and four people were reported killed in the southern state
of Guerrero.

No government agency keeps a tally of the drug-related killings, but
according to human rights organizations and newspapers, an average of
six people are killed in the country's drug wars every day.

The newspaper El Universal said Saturday that its tally of
drug-related killings for the year had reached 2,012. Last year, more
than 1,500 people were killed in violence related to a lucrative
trade in illicit drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamines.

The death Friday of Misael Tamayo Hernandez, the editor of the daily
newspaper El Despertar de la Costa, appeared to be the sixth killing
of a Mexican journalist this year, Reporters Without Borders said.

But in a country where drug killings are often public events -- a
hail of bullets on a busy street, a decapitated head deposited on the
steps of a government building -- Tamayo's death was different.

He died before dawn in a Zihuatanejo hotel room, officials said. His
sister Ruth Tamayo, who identified his body at the hotel, said he was
neither shot, nor strangled with a towel, nor tied up and executed,
as reported by various local media.

The editor was found with three puncture wounds on his shoulder, she
said. The coroner established the cause of death as a heart attack,
but could not rule out foul play until a toxicology report was
complete, officials said.

"We still haven't managed to understand what happened," Ruth Tamayo
said. "We're very sad, our entire family is distraught. We still
can't believe it."

Having last seen him Thursday morning, Tamayo's family and co-workers
became worried after he failed to show up at a 6:30 p.m. meeting at
his newspaper. Within an hour, reporters and family members began
searching for him.

"My brother never let the paper go to print like that," Ruth said.
"The newspaper was his passion. He was the kind to call in every 10
minutes to see how things were going."

Days before he was found dead, the editor had written a column
denouncing local corruption. Guerrero, which includes Zihuatanejo and
Acapulco, has been ravaged by a battle between competing drug cartels
and the police. Tamayo's newspaper reported extensively on the violence.

Three days before Tamayo's death, Mexican President-elect Felipe
Calderon visited Zihuatanejo to deliver a speech to a foreign trade
conference. He dedicated a part of his speech to addressing fears
that the wave of drug-related violence might chase away foreign investment.

Calderon, set to take the oath of office Dec. 1, promised his
government would not waver in its battle against drug violence.

"It's going to take work, time and money" to win the battle, Calderon
said. "And it will probably cost us human lives as well.... But there
is no other alternative."

In April, hit men left two severed heads outside a Guerrero state
government building in Acapulco. "So that you learn to respect," read
a message scrawled on a red sheet left nearby. In October, two more
heads were found on Acapulco's beach.

In Tijuana on Thursday, more than 10 heavily armed men ambushed a
police vehicle on a busy thoroughfare near downtown, killing one
officer in a wild shootout that left a flower vendor and a taxi driver injured.

A police commander, Hector Gaxiola Gamez, narrowly escaped the
attack. But the next morning, gunmen again caught up to the
commander, and this time they didn't miss. Gaxiola's body, handcuffed
to that of his brother, was found in an empty lot, disfigured by more
than 100 gunshot wounds.

Gaxiola was the 19th law enforcement officer to be killed this year
in Tijuana. Many were slain after the August capture of alleged drug
lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, which many experts believe has
triggered a battle for control of the lucrative narcotics trade in the city.

Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon blamed the media, saying a story
erroneously identifying Gaxiola as a witness in the case of the
killing of another police officer had led to his death.

"Are we becoming used to this being a 'normal' day in our country?"
El Universal asked in a Saturday editorial, as the paper reported on
the deaths of Tamayo and Gaxiola.