GUNMEN SLAUGHTER 18 MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN

MEXICO CITY - Gunmen swarmed into a quiet Pacific fishing port early
yesterday and massacred at least 18 men, women and children in an
apparent drug-related attack.

At least two teenagers, six children and a baby were among the
victims, who apparently were dragged from their beds and shot at about
4:30 a.m., Red Cross workers said.

At least one other victim, a man, was seriously wounded.

Police were questioning a 15-year-old girl who hid under her bed and
escaped the slaughter in El Sauzal, a suburb of Ensenada, Baja California.

The town is about 100 kilometres south of San Diego,
Calif.

``If drug traffickers did this, it's a new kind of attack,'' said
Victor Clark, a Tijuana human rights activist. ``Usually, they execute
one or two people, not entire families. At least not here in Baja
California. By killing these children, the traffickers have broken
their own unwritten code.''

Some law enforcement sources speculated that the killings could be
retaliation for the Sept. 10 slaying of convicted drug trafficker
Rafael Muoz Talavera in the border city of Ciudad Jurez, across from
El Paso, Texas.

Muoz Talavera was released from a Mexican jail in 1995 after serving
time for engineering a record 21-tonne cocaine shipment that landed in
Southern California.

He wrote a letter to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo last December,
saying he had gotten out of the drug trade.

But some American law enforcement officials dispute that and say there
were signs that Muoz Talavera had taken control of the Ciudad
Juarez-El Paso drug corridor.

The Arellano Felix drug gang, traditionally based in Tijuana, may have
seen him as a rival and killed him, law enforcement sources say.

In retaliation, authorities said, traffickers loyal to Muoz Talavera
may have carried out yesterday's attack.

Among those shot was Fermn Castro, an alleged Arellano Felix associate
in charge of marijuana cultivation in the nearby Valley of Trinity,
said Marco Antonio de la Fuente, the attorney-general of Baja California.

Castro wasn't killed in the attack, but was in very serious condition
with a bullet wound to his head, officials said.

The Arellano Felix gang - allegedly led by brothers Ramn, Benjamin and
Javier - is ``one of the most powerful and aggressive drug trafficking
organizations in Mexico . . . and undeniably the most violent,'' said
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The brothers operate, often under police protection, in the Mexican
states of Baja California, Jalisco, Michoacn, Chiapas and Sinaloa,
their home state, administration agents say.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady