BLOOD RUNS IN STREETS OF JUAREZ

The new year began much as the last one ended in Juarez - three
homicides on New Year's Day.

Juarez had its most violent year in memory in 2008 as extortion,
street shootings and beheadings became an almost daily occurrence
because of a crime wave fueled by a war among drug cartels.

Chihuahua state police spokesman Arturo Sandoval said that a final
tally on the number of homicides last year would not be available
until later this week. But unofficially, 2008 ended with more than
1,600 homicides around Juarez.

Juarez officials said the city police force is in better shape than it
was a year ago. It fired 300 officers deemed untrustworthy, grew to
more than 1,600 officers and acquired needed firearms from the federal
government.

But as 2009 begins, Juarez and the rest of Mexico still face a
public-safety crisis from the corrupting power of organized crime that
some have describe as a national security threat also felt on the U.S.
side of the border.

"The continued impunity of these crimes constitutes a frontal threat
to the rule of law in our binational community," states a draft of a
proposed resolution condemning the violence in Juarez, scheduled to go
before the El Paso City Council on Tuesday.

The document is intended to show solidarity with the people of Juarez,
support law enforcement and urge the governments of the U.S. and
Mexico to "examine the nation's policies on drugs with a focus on
rehabilitation rather than incarceration." The proposal will head to
the City Council almost a year to the day - Jan. 5, 2008 - that Juarez
Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said drug cartels began fighting in the city.

Recent rumors in Juarez that warring drug traffickers have reached an
agreement to end the fighting could not be confirmed.

The upheaval between Mexican cartels is believed to have been sparked
by the breakup of the Sinaloa Federation in a feud between the Sinaloa
cartel lead by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Beltran Leyva
organization, which has old ties to the Juarez cartel, according to a
recent analysis by Stratfor, an Austin publisher of geopolitical
intelligence.

The analysis stated that nothing indicated the violence in Mexico
would end soon, and that further attacks on government forces "seem
all but inevitable."

One of the latest confrontations occurred last week in the mountains
outside the town of Uruachic in west-central Chihuahua. Soldiers on
reconnaissance were attacked, resulting in three attackers killed,
three soldiers wounded and the discovery of a marijuana plantation,
military officials said.

The Strafor analysis stated that the violence continued in Juarez
despite the arrival of more than 2,000 soldiers last March because the
Mexican army is stretched too thin at multiple hot spots.

"Juarez is an interesting case study of what happens when too few
troops are deployed to such a large metropolitan area," the Stratfor
analysis stated.