BEHEADINGS A SIGN OF MEXICO TURF WAR

Bloody Scene in a Once Tranquil State Underscores Growing Violence

MEXICO CITY - Masked gunmen burst into a nightclub early Wednesday
and flung five human heads onto the dance floor in what was easily
one of the most shocking incidents of drug violence in Mexico this year.

The Light and Shadow club in the city of Uruapan in Michoacan state
was packed when the men stormed in at 1:30 a.m. and ordered customers
onto the floor, state police officials said. Then they pulled the
bloody heads from plastic bags and tossed them out in front of the
horrified crowd.

The assailants - suspected drug gang members wearing police uniforms
- - also left a message scrawled on cardboard:

"The family doesn't kill for money. It doesn't kill women and it
doesn't kill the innocent. Only those who deserve it die. Let it be
known: This is divine justice."

The gruesome episode brought to at least 13 the number of people
decapitated so far this year in Michoacan, a normally tranquil state
that has been drawn into a horrific, increasingly violent turf war
between rival cartels.

Nationwide, drug violence this year has claimed a record 1,500 lives,
including more than 300 in Michoacan, known for lush pine forests and
the charming colonial cities of Morelia and Patzcuaro.

Federal authorities are alarmed.

"Mexico is witnessing extreme violence like we've never seen before,"
said Santiago Vasconcelos, the country's drug czar.

Michoacan's attorney general, Juan Antonio Magana, played down the
state's role in the violence. "This is lamentable and worrisome," he
told reporters on Wednesday.. "But it goes well beyond our borders."

13 Police Officers Killed

That is little comfort to residents. Even many of the police in
Michoacan - 13 have been killed this year alone - are terrified.

"Any sane person would be scared," said Marco Antonio Gonzalez, mayor
of the cattle town of Tepalcatepec, where four severed heads were
recently found hanging on a roadside cross.

Interviewed at the town hall, he admitted he was considering fleeing
with his wife and newborn baby. But, he added, "Where would we go?"

Violence this year is also plaguing the resort cities of Acapulco,
Cancun and Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo as the wars between rival drug gangs
fan south across the country.

At stake is the distribution of tons of cocaine and other drugs, most
of which will end up on the streets of Los Angeles, Houston and other
American cities. And traffickers are more than willing to kill for
their share of the multibillion-dollar trade.

"If current murder rates continue, the body count will equal or
surpass the figure for 2005," the U.S.-based Frontera NorteSur news
service said Sunday. " ... The major part of the nation is now
embroiled in organized crime feuds. Violence is reaching such levels
that some narco-families are reportedly fleeing their home bases and
seeking refuge in the few remaining tranquil spots of the country or
attempting to relocate to the United States and Canada."

Gruesome Tactics

It's not just the frequency of the violence that frightens Mexicans.
It's the brutality.

Traffickers' increasingly gruesome methods include: blowing their
victims up with grenades, cutting them to pieces or chopping off their heads.

Gang members are also more brazen in choosing their targets. On Aug.
17, suspected hit men gunned down a federal judge. Judges, who are
rarely attacked, are now demanding police protection.

Mexican officials say the violence is the result of their own success
in beheading the nation's drug cartels.

"Their heads have been deactivated and put in a jar," Vasconcelos
said in an interview.

In response, he says, traffickers are waging an internecine war for
control of the drug routes and Mexico's increasingly lucrative domestic market.

"The criminal organizations have no way of reacting other than with
violence," he said. "And violence begets violence."

Vasconcelos argued that the U.S. government was partly to blame for
failing to stop the flow of illegal weapons across the southern
border, particularly from Texas.

"There's a huge black market in weapons in the United States that
they have to control," he said. "If they closed that, the traffickers
would be hitting each other with stones instead of bazookas."

But for now, Michoacan must cope with the violence. With just 4
million residents, the state now ranks third in the number of victims
behind Baja California and Tamaulipas, which borders Texas.

"Michoacan is looking like Medellin and Cali in the worst of times,"
said writer Homero Aridjis, a native of the state.

Strategic Location

Narcotics officials point to Michoacan's strategic importance as a
transshipment point for South American cocaine. After landing on the
Pacific coast, the drugs are often trucked to Apatzingan, a bustling
agricultural town two hours inland, then they are flown to points
north from nearby Guadalajara. And the traffic is expected to grow
with plans to convert the state's main coastal city, Lazaro Cardenas,
into a major container port.

But there's another critical factor fueling the violence: Michoacan
is the country's leading producer of crystal methamphetamines, or
ice, which has been rising in popularity in the U.S.

The first clandestine laboratories for the drug - which is made from
chemicals used in cold medicines - were discovered in the early 1990s
in Apatzingan, which is 45 miles east of Tepalcatepec.

The surrounding fertile region also has a long history of producing
marijuana and poppies for making heroin, along with cotton, lemons and papayas.

These days, however, some locals are shunning agriculture in favor of
the more profitable synthetic drug trade, Mexican officials say.

And signs of their prosperity are easy to spot. Some locals snap up
Hummers at a dealership that recently opened outside Apatzingan.
Others cruise through the town in gleaming pickups with tinted windows.

Some police officers can't help but join the action.

In August, 24 municipal police officers from Apatzingan were indicted
on charges of conspiring with the powerful Gulf cartel, whose bloody
rivalry with the Sinaloa cartel is blamed for much of the violence
nationwide. The traffickers have also corrupted state and federal
police, narcotics officials say.

"The only way to stop the violence in Michoacan would be to replace
the entire police force at all levels," said a state intelligence
official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "You can't imagine what
a huge problem we have here."

Businesses Extorted

In Tepalcatepec, the traffickers have begun extorting local
businessmen to raise money for their armies of hit men - an estimated
900 of whom are believed to operate in the state, according to
Mexican officials.

Recent federal raids in Michoacan have been successful in rounding up
hundreds of traffickers, he said.

But Gonzalez, the Tepalcatepec mayor, is unconvinced. He and other
residents recently took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper
pleading for more federal police and soldiers to combat the traffickers.

The recent spate of beheadings in the town began after the tortured
body of a suspected top hit man turned up in July five miles outside
of Tepalcatepec. Police say the victim's gang members erected a cross
in his honor and then took their revenge by beheading their rivals
and dumping their heads at the site.

"The situation is serious, critical even," Gonzalez said. "I can't
imagine what would make someone want to do something like that."