OFFICIALS LINK ENSENADA MASSACRE TO DRUG FEUD

Violence: Key target, wounded and in a coma, is a known trafficker, Mexican
authorities say.

ENSENADA--The principal target of the massacre that left 18 people dead just
outside this Baja California resort was a known drug gang leader, and the
killings were probably the result of a feud between drug traffickers,
Mexican officials said Friday.

Fermin Castro, also known to authorities as "the Ice Man," was critically
wounded in Thursday's predawn attack, in which Castro and 20 members of his
extended family, including eight children, were dragged from their beds and
shot execution-style.

Castro led one of six drug trafficking gangs linked to the infamous Arellano
Felix drug cartel in the Ensenada area, according to Mexican federal
government documents shown to reporters Friday by Jesus Blancornelas, editor
of the Tijuana weekly news magazine Zeta.

Baja prosecutors said at a news conference Friday afternoon that Castro, 38,
was involved in drug running between Ensenada and drop-off points across the
border. They declined, however, to confirm any link between Castro and the
Arellano Felix cartel.

Witnesses to the massacre in El Sauzal, a small farm town outside Ensenada,
"indicate that there were problems between Mr. Castro and other people over
the question of drugs," said Marco Antonio de la Fuente Villarreal, attorney
general for the northern Baja region.

Authorities said a brother-in-law of Castro who was killed in Thursday's
attack also was involved in drug trafficking. They identified him as
Francisco Javier Flores Altamirano, 30.

Authorities have said that if the slayings were related to drugs, they
breached an "unwritten code" among the drug cartels that calls for sparing
the lives of children.

De la Fuente said informants led authorities investigating the massacre to a
location in the Baja community of Tecate, where officers recovered 100 bags
of marijuana and 15 weapons, including pistols and one AK-47 assault rifle.
Ten people were detained in Tecate for questioning, but were not arrested.
Forensics experts will test the weapons to see if they were used in
Thursday's killings, officials said.

Officials also revealed that Castro was tortured before he was shot. Castro
remained in a coma Friday, under heavy guard at a local hospital. Several
Mexican newspapers speculated that a rivalry between the Arellano Felix gang
and new challengers expanding their interests in Baja California may be
behind the crime.

New Round of Violence Feared

Much of the conjecture centered on the Arellano Felix cartel's chief
lieutenant in the Ensenada area, IsmaelHiguera Guerrero, known locally as
"El Mayel." Castro worked under Higuera's supervision, according to the
government documents produced by editor Blancornelas, who was critically
wounded last year in an ambush believed to have been orchestrated by the
Arellano Felix cartel. Some observers fear that the killings might mark the
beginning of a new and bloody period of Baja California's drug wars, which
have claimed the lives of a long line of drug kingpins, police officers and
government prosecutors. "If this was not the Arellanos, it was a cartel of
equal power," said Tijuana human rights activist Victor Clark. "If this is
an outside group that has come to strike out against the Arellanos, this
means they are weakening. The killers must be from a very important cartel."
The Arellano Felix clan has reportedly moved much of its personnel away from
Tijuana as law enforcement authorities have mounted crackdowns in the border
city. The group's tentacles are believed to have spread down the coast to
Ensenada and east to Mexicali. Castro has been linked in Tijuana news
reports to marijuana production in Valle de Trinidad, southeast of Ensenada,
where he is believed to have been born on an Indian reservation known as
Santa Catarina. According to an account in Zeta, Castro's gang was named
after the reservation. On Friday morning, at the scene of the massacre, the
whinnying of Castro's prized horses was the only sound that punctuated the
air as investigators continued to pore over the bloodstained patio of his
farming compound. Children's clothing still hung from laundry lines at the
site where the members of three families had been yanked from their beds and
shot in Baja California's worst crime. Castro, who raised livestock and
organized rodeos, lived with his extended family on a ranch compound in the
El Sauzal de Rodriguez community north of Ensenada.

Key Victim Is Closely Guarded

Friday in Ensenada, Mexican soldiers and police kept a strict watch outside
Castro's hospital room. Besides Castro, the survivors are 12-year-old Mario
Alberto Flores, who suffered unspecified but serious injuries, and Viviana
Flores, 15, who apparently escaped unharmed.

Officials at first had said that she remained safe by hiding under a bed.
But authorities Friday said she had hidden between a wardrobe and a bureau
in her bedroom and later had driven the wounded boy to safety. Gen. Jose
Luis Chavez Garcia, the top federal prosecutor in Baja, said at the news
conference that authorities were preparing a search warrant for the ranch
when they were overtaken by events. Personal vengeance was being examined as
a possible motive for the killings, in a nation where inter-family enmities
sometimes simmer for years before erupting into violence, especially in the
countryside. Many see the fingerprints of the drug trade in both the style
of the attack--which seemed to involve well-trained and cold-blooded
assassins--and the high-powered weapons employed.

The killers did most of their damage with AK-47s, known here as cuernos de
chivos (goat horns) because of their distinctive curved magazines.

The weapons are a favorite among drug traffickers. About a dozen assailants
are believed to have sprayed the victims with gunfire as they lay face-down
on a concrete patio after having been roused from their sleep.

Authorities found almost 100 spent shells at the gruesome scene. Journalists
who toured the grounds late Friday encountered a tableau of grim contrasts:
the strewn toys of children and a trail of bloody footprints believed to
have been made by Castro after he was first wounded in his house. He later
was shot with the others outdoors. A U.S. drug enforcement agent said that
while U.S. officials are still trying to piece together the story behind the
massacre, they are leaning toward the theory that it was an Arellano Felix
hit, in part because of the brutality. The Arellanos, considered Mexico's
most vicious cartel, have been known to break with the so-called law of the
Mafia that declares family members immune to such violence. Arellano gunmen
were blamed for the death of the wife and children of a rival drug lord. And
in the last few years, they have been blamed for the murder of the elderly
father and the wife of a witness who implicated the cartel in a series of
crimes. "They go a step further, like the Colombian cartels," the U.S. agent
said. "But it's horrendous, so many at one time. That's barbaric, even by
their standards." A veteran U.S. anti-drug official echoed those sentiments.
"You have [killings] here and there, but 21 people?

It's like mixing up Jonestown, Waco and the Colombian cartels. . . . What
are they trying to prove with this?" Whatever the motive, the crime has
deeply shaken people in this relatively quiet corner of Baja California, a
place that, until now, has escaped the gangland-style killings of Tijuana.

'The People Who Did This Are Maniacs' Just a quarter-mile up the hill from
the scene of the massacre, Leticia Rodriguez had difficulty putting the
scale of her loss into words.

She was related to six of the dead. "I'm terribly sad for what happened,"
she said as she hung laundry. "The people who did this are maniacs to have
the kind of heart to kill in that way." A few miles down the road near the
bustling hotels and restaurants of Ensenada, businessmen who cater to
Southern California tourists worried that reports of the savage attack could
chase customers away. "People will only remember the headlines, 'Massacre in
Ensenada,' " said Lorenzo Scott, who runs an art gallery. "People who don't
come down here enough to know better will stay away."

McDonnell reported from Tijuana, Ellingwood from Ensenada and Tobar from Los
Angeles. Times staff writers Ann-Marie O'Connor and Tony Perry contributed
to this story.

Checked-by: Don Beck