GRENADE ATTACK IN MEXICO BREAKS FROM DEADLY SCRIPT

MEXICO CITY -- When Mexican homicide investigators pull up at the scene
of the latest drug-related slaughter, they go through a mental
checklist: How many corpses? What sort of wounds? And, finally, where
is the note scrawled by the killers?

Mexico's drug violence seems to be spiraling out of control, with each
mass killing followed by an even gorier one and innocents increasingly
falling victim to traffickers' ruthlessness. Yet there is often a
sinister order to the chaos, as killers in Mexico's drug war
frequently leave a calling card with the bodies that spells out a
motive for the massacre, or at least their version of it.

That is what has the authorities here puzzling over the two grenades
that were hurled into a crowd of innocent revelers in Michoacan State
on Independence Day last week, which killed eight people (a
13-year-old boy succumbed to his injuries on Saturday) and wounded
more than 100 more. In this case, nobody has claimed responsibility
for it. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. La Familia, a violent
drug gang based in Michoacan that the authorities have suggested might
be responsible, has gone to extraordinary lengths to distance itself
from the unprecedented attack on innocents, which has long been
considered ungentlemanly behavior among cartel killers.

After the Sept. 15 grenade attack, La Familia sent text messages to
reporters disavowing involvement in the killings. The group pledged in
pamphlets to strike back at those responsible for harming women and
children. And in banners hung around Morelia, Michoacan's capital, La
Familia pointed a finger at the Zetas, a paramilitary group linked to
a rival gang.

"Coward is the word for those who attack the country's peace and
tranquillity," said one message put up by La Familia.

But with no note by the killers to go on, the authorities consider the
brazen attack to be a sign that all bets in the drug war may be off.
The authorities detained three suspects last week in connection with
the explosions but later released them. Mexico has a poor track record
when it comes to catching and prosecuting killers, even in
high-profile cases. What the Michoacan killing has laid bare is that
there is no shortage of suspects who have access to military weaponry
and the ruthlessness to aim it at a crowd.

Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon has
deployed 30,000 federal police and soldiers throughout the country to
take on the traffickers. In the nearly two years since, his
administration has boasted of the capture of numerous cartel leaders
and the seizure of huge amounts of drugs and money. But the violence
has spiraled only upward, especially the headline-grabbing massacres.

Innocents are being caught in the cross-fire more and more often, as
in an attack in the mountain town of Creel in Chihuahua State last
month when gunmen fired on a family gathering, killing more than a
dozen people, including an infant and a 4-year-old boy. The
authorities suspect the gunmen were seeking some of the men in the
crowd.

Mr. Calderon's government says that most of the goriest killings seem
to be reprisals among traffickers and that the violence is a sign they
are feeling the heat from the drug war and fighting amongst
themselves. But while Mr. Calderon has vigorously defended his
decision to bring in the military, he has noted that much of the
violence stems from gangs expanding their "retail" sales within
Mexico. He has also acknowledged that the chaos would probably outlive
his presidency, and that fighting it would cost time, money and "human
lives."

"What are the alternatives?" he said in an interview. "Is the
alternative to allow organized crime to take over the country?"

Still, with each bloody note left at the scene, the killers project
their power.

"Why do you decapitate people?" asked Bruce Bagley, a professor at the
University of Miami, referring to the decapitated heads and bodies
that have turned up in the drug war. "They are doing this to
intimidate authorities, other gangs and the civilian population. The
bitterness of the fight has intensified. There's a very unsettled and
uncertain set of strategic alliances between these groups that are
changing from day to day."

The messages left at murder scenes, many of them full of errors in
syntax and spelling, reflect this fragmentation of the cartels. "You
get what you deserve," said one note, left with four severed heads
found over the summer in Durango State and believed by the authorities
to be members of a rival cartel.

"This is what happens to stupid traitors who take sides with Chapo
Guzman," said a different message left near five bodies in Chihuahua
State and attributed to rivals of Joaquin Guzman, leader of the
Sinaloa Cartel who is better known by his nickname, El Chapo, which
means Shorty.

The notes are sometimes aimed at the law enforcement officers trying
to put the cartels out of business.

"Let us work," said a message left with 11 decapitated bodies found in
Yucatan State last month, leading the authorities to speculate that
the killings revolved around a business dispute.

A hit man who killed a police officer in Sinaloa State at the end of
August left a note that said, among other things, "Ha, ha, ha."

The notes are just the beginning of the cartel's communication
techniques. E-mail messages are sent to select journalists. YouTube
videos are uploaded, sometimes with gruesome images that rival those
put out by Al Qaeda. The cartels also commission songs about their
supposed heroics that make it on the nightclub circuit.

Not all the messages, or narco-mensajes, as they are called here, can
be read literally. Some are forms of disinformation, the authorities
say, meant to send investigators off track.

Many, though, are proudly signed by the actual cartel involved in the
killing, a form of bravado, the authorities say.

La Familia, which is not the least bit familial, was responsible for
the five heads dumped in a bar in the town of Uruapa in 2006. "La
Familia doesn't kill for money, doesn't kill women, doesn't kill
innocent people," said a note accompanying the heads, believed to be
those of dealers who crossed the group. "It only kills those who
deserve to die."

In Morelia, state officials received some ominous warnings a week or
so before Independence Day suggesting that violence would break out.
One of the threats, attributed to La Familia and telephoned in to the
authorities, said that grenades would be used against soldiers during
the military parade planned for Sept. 16, the day after the evening
celebration.

The motive, the caller said, was to send a message to the soldiers who
have been deployed in the state to back off, according to news
reports. As it happened, the attack came a day early and was directed
at civilians, not soldiers.

With the main plaza stained with blood and the population traumatized,
the military parade was called off.