17 KILLED IN MEXICAN REHAB CENTER

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Several masked men armed with automatic
weapons stormed into a drug rehabilitation center in this violent
border city on Wednesday night, lined up recovering drug addicts and
alcoholics against a wall and opened fire at point-blank range,
killing 17 people and wounding three.

The attack, within sight of the border with the United States, was a
shocking new low in the wave of vicious crimes Mexico has endured
since President Felipe Calderon began a frontal assault on the
nation's drug gangs in December 2006. Rehab clinics have been a
special target in Juarez, with cartels hunting for rivals who might
be hiding in the clinics or recruiting in them.

After investigators had removed the bodies early Thursday morning and
rushed the survivors to the hospital, relatives of the victims at the
Aliviane rehab center pushed inside. A thick layer of blood covered
the concrete floor, from the entrance to the courtyard to the
sleeping quarters. A chained dog had been shot, while another huddled
in a corner, unhurt. The smell of death hung in the air.

"It's horrible," wailed a woman whose son had been a patient at the
clinic. She clutched a telephone pole for support after stumbling
away. "My God," she said. "My son is dead."

The upsurge of violence in Juarez, where rival gangs have been
battling for the lucrative smuggling route to the United States,
seems an open challenge to Mr. Calderon's government, which has sent
10,000 troops and federal police officers to patrol the streets and
retake control of the city from the traffickers.

Despite the reinforcements, Juarez experienced the most violent month
in its history in August, according to the local media, with at least
326 killings. That was almost half the homicides in all of Mexico for
the month. And Juarez, Mexico's most violent city in 2008 with 1,600
killings, is on pace to exceed that figure this year.

In Michoacan, a center of drug violence west of Mexico City, the
deputy director of public safety, Jose Manuel Revuelta, was shot to
death on Wednesday, along with two bodyguards. He had been on the job
for less than two weeks.

In the past two years, gunmen suspected of ties with drug gangs have
barged into rehab clinics in Juarez four times and started shooting.
The death toll from these attacks on clinics is now about 32.

Juan Manuel Vega, who has run a treatment center for years in Juarez,
said drug users found it very hard to change their ways.

"Everything about your life has to change," he said. "And there are
people who don't want you to change."