MEXICO DRUG CRACKDOWN BREEDS MORE VIOLENCE FROM THE CARTELS

MORELIA, Mexico - It was Mexican Independence Day and the square in
this colonial city was packed with revelers. Suddenly, something flew
over the head of Angelica Bucio, struck a man in front of her and
rolled to a stop on the ground.

A second later, the grenade exploded, slamming Bucio against a
fountain. Her arms and legs burned with white-hot shrapnel. Smoke and
screaming and blood were everywhere.

For residents of this city, last week's attack that killed seven
people and injured 108 was yet another sign that President Felipe
Calderon's nationwide war on drugs, which began in Morelia nearly two
years ago, is going poorly.

Instead of subsiding, drug-related murders are rising and becoming
more gruesome. Once-quiet border towns have become battlegrounds.
Police-on-police clashes have left citizens wondering who the good
guys are. And the Morelia grenade attack, which the Mexican Attorney
General's Office blamed on drug traffickers, has raised fears that
smugglers are moving into outright terrorism.

"They have crossed a line from recklessly endangering civilians in
their attacks on law-enforcement officials and rival gangs to
deliberately targeting innocent men, women and children," U.S.
Ambassador Tony Garza said after the attack.

The turmoil is in stark contrast to the U.S. side of the border,
where Calderon's crackdown looks like a success. The White House has
credited Mexico's efforts for a drop in the drug supply. Since 2006,
the U.S. has seen an 84 percent jump in methamphetamine prices and a
21 percent increase in cocaine prices. Meth use has dropped 50
percent and cocaine use has decreased 19 percent, according to the
Office of National Drug Control Policy.

But in Mexico, many people are wondering if the crackdown on cartels
is worth the loss of life. Marches and rallies are multiplying as
Mexicans vent their frustration at the violence.

"I don't think the government is winning," Bucio said as she lay in a
hospital bed surrounded by other victims from the grenade attack.
"The violence is getting worse."

New sheriff in town

Calderon's offensive against drugs began in December 2006, just days
after he took office. Prompted by a series of murders, the
bespectacled former economist surprised the country by dispatching
10,000 troops to patrol the streets of Morelia and other cities in
his home state of Michoacan. The state is a major producer of crystal
meth, marijuana and heroin.

Within weeks, troops were also sent to Tijuana, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo,
Monterrey and other drug-trafficking corridors. Stunned police
officers were forced to hand over their weapons to the soldiers. City
residents awoke to find convoys of Humvees bristling with grenade
launchers and machine guns rolling past their homes.

Thousands of suspects were arrested in raids and at highway
checkpoints. Dozens were extradited to the United States. Calderon
also asked the U.S. for help, a historic move in a country that is
especially sensitive about U.S. meddling. The Bush administration
responded with a pledge of $1.1 billion in police and military aid.

But as the offensive approaches the two-year mark, many Mexicans fear
the battle is turning into a quagmire, said Francisco Garcia Cordero,
editor of Criminalia, a criminal-justice journal.

When the crackdown began, about 53 percent of Mexicans approved of
Calderon's anti-crime efforts, according to a poll commissioned by
the Reforma newspaper. By Sept. 1, that figure was down to 34 percent.

"There is no faith that the battle is making progress," Garcia
Cordero said. "We're seeing mistakes, unjustified steps,
improvisation by the government."

Among the more distressing developments:

• Drug-related murders have soared. By Sept. 3, they had hit 3,004
this year, compared with 2,673 in all of 2007, according to a tally
by El Universal newspaper. In 2006, there were 1,410 drug-related
killings, according to the newspaper's count.

• The arrests of suspected kingpins have caused the drug gangs to
splinter, sparking turf wars and running shootouts in once-sleepy
border towns like Cananea, Sonora; and Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas.

• Mass killings have become commonplace. On Aug. 28, 12 decapitated
bodies were found outside the Yucatan Peninsula city of Merida. On
Sept. 13, police found 24 bodies that had been bound and shot in a
rural area outside Mexico City. And on Aug. 16, gunmen shot 13
people, including a baby, at a party in the northern town of Creel.

• Though arrests have soared, only a fraction of suspects are being
convicted. Only 12 percent of all federal investigations result in a
conviction, the Calderon administration said in its Sept. 1 State of
the Union report.

• The boom in arrests has also left the country's jails dangerously
overcrowded, with an average of 30 percent more prisoners than they
were designed to hold. Last week, 23 inmates died in a riot at a
Tijuana prison that was built for 3,000 but was housing 8,000.

• Drug addiction has risen as traffickers become less disciplined and
as tighter U.S. border security causes a glut of drugs in Mexico. The
number of Mexicans who had tried drugs rose nearly 29 percent from
2002 to 2008, the Mexican Health Department said last week.

The violence has sparked rallies nationwide to demand better police protection.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Mexico City, Guadalajara and
Monterrey on Aug. 30. Protesters in Creel blocked a tourist train on
Sept. 13 to demand progress in the investigation into the Aug. 16 massacre.

Even cadets at a federal police academy in San Luis Potosi held a
student strike last month after five of their comrades were gunned
down. They demanded more police roadblocks to catch the killers and
the right to carry guns.

No end in sight

Back in Michoacan, the body count has continued to rise. At the
Miguel Silva General Hospital in Morelia, Medical Director Maria
Soledad Castro said doctors now treat about 15 gunshot victims a month.

"Before this all started, we rarely got even one gunshot a month," she said.

On Sept. 6, smugglers ambushed and killed seven police officers in
the Michoacan town of El Pareo.But it was the two grenade explosions
in downtown Morelia on Sept. 15 that most shocked Mexicans. Explosive
attacks against crowds of civilians are nearly unheard of in Mexico.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. But a spokeswoman
for Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said Thursday that
investigators had evidence pointing to drug traffickers. She added
that the cartels are trying to demoralize the public and create
pressure on the government to stop the war.

A few days after the attack, street banners claiming to be from a
local drug gang known as La Familia accused the rival Zetas, the
enforcement wing of the powerful Gulf Cartel, of throwing the
grenades. The two groups are believed to be locked in a struggle for
control of Michoacan's smuggling routes.

In response, Calderon announced bills giving the government more
power to seize drug assets and a new reward program for tipsters. He
also proposed an easier process for getting search warrants and more
investigative powers for police. In at least five speeches following
the Morelia attacks, he urged Mexicans to stand strong.

"Mexico is living through difficult times," Calderon said. "This is a
fundamental moment for the entire country to be united in the fight
against crime."

Morelia resident Ernesto Guevara said he still believes the crackdown
was a good idea but thinks politicians and regular Mexicans
underestimated how hard the fight would be.

"Michoacan has always been famous for having narcos, but they've
always been quiet," he said, sitting at an outdoor cafe across from
the plaza where the Sept. 15 attacks took place. "Now, they're
divided and fighting. I don't think the Mexican government was
prepared for this."

Something fell and made a bang inside a delivery truck parked on the
curb. Patrons at the cafe jumped and spun around. Guevara nodded grimly.

"People are on edge now," he sai