HEAD TO HEAD IN MEXICO: D.E.A. AGENTS AND SUSPECTS

Two American drug-enforcement agents who had been driving around a Mexican
border city with an informer were chased, surrounded and nearly killed two
weeks ago by a posse of suspected drug traffickers and their heavily armed
bodyguards, United States and Mexican officials said Tuesday.

After a standoff that lasted for nearly 20 minutes on a busy street in
downtown Matamoros, just across the Texas border from Brownsville, the
agents finally talked their way to safety by identifying themselves and
warning the traffickers that they would never be allowed to get away with
murdering American agents.

"This was very, very close," said a United States official with detailed
knowledge of the incident, on Nov. 9. "It was as close as you can get
without a funeral."

At least some of the traffickers' bodyguards, who trained AK-47 rifles and
other weapons on the Americans throughout the standoff, were wearing
jackets that identified them as members of the Tamaulipas state police,
officials said.

In a statement, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Mexican state
police officers appeared to have been in the group.

A senior Mexican official said the presence of state police officers had
not been corroborated. The official, Mariano Herran Salvatti, director of
the Mexican drug enforcement agency, said in a telephone interview from
Mexico City that Mexican officials had responded immediately to the
incident. "This investigation is being carried out with all the intensity
that a situation like this requires," Herran said.

United States officials described the case as probably the most serious
threat against American antidrug agents in Mexico since one agent, Enrique
S. Camarena, was tortured to death by traffickers in 1985.

The two governments agreed last year on new rules to bar agents from
conducting any undercover operations without explicit Mexican permission
and supervision. But the governments have failed to resolve how the agents
should protect themselves. American agents are not supposed to carry guns
or conduct law-enforcement operations in Mexico.

Although one official said the agents in Matamoros, one from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and one from the Drug Enforcement Administration,
were apparently carrying guns in their car, they did not draw their
weapons. Other United States officials refused to comment on whether the
agents were armed.

The agents were stationed in Monterrey in northern Mexico as part of
program that both countries consider crucial to the success of their
efforts to combat the biggest drug-trafficking gangs in Mexico.

In Matamoros, the two agents were investigating Osiel Cardenas Guillen,
believed by American drug-intelligence officials to have emerged as the
biggest trafficker along the Gulf Coast.

At about 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 9, the agents were driving around a residential
area with the informer, checking places said to be frequented by Cardenas
and his associates, when they noticed another vehicle apparently following
them. Soon, the officials said, the agents detected a second vehicle, and
then a third. The agents sped up and made a turn, but were quickly
surrounded by pickups and other vehicles with groups of heavily armed men.

As the agents frantically dialed a state police commander from a cellular
telephone, the officials recounted, one truck blocked the agents' sedan and
forced them to halt. From a caravan of eight vehicles, officials said, 12
to 15 men jumped out exhibiting their guns and demanding that the men leave
their car, which had consular license plates. The agents refused, flashing
identification and rolling down their windows a crack to identify
themselves as American officials.

The director of the group, whom one agent recognized as Cardenas,
recognized the informer and had the head of his security detail, a man with
a gold-plated AK-47, demand that the agents turn over the informer. When
the agents again refused, officials said, the gunmen took a step back,
trained their rifles on the car and appeared about to fire.

Shouting at the gunmen to wait, the agents then reportedly conceded that
they were American law-enforcement officials and pleaded, telling the
gunmen that it would be a grave mistake to fire.

Finally, an official said, the man identified as Cardenas waved off the
men, reportedly telling the agents: "You gringos. This is my territory. You
can't control it. So get the hell out of here!"

The three drove straight to the border and have not returned to Mexico,
officials said. They telephoned American officials, and word of the
incident was immediately communicated to high-level officials of both
countries, who were coincidentally meeting that afternoon in Washington.