Mexico Under Siege

CARTEL LEADER SLAIN BY MILITARY

'Tony Tormenta,' a Top Figure in the Gulf Drug Gang Dies in a Border Gun Battle

The Mexican drug kingpin known as "Tony Tormenta," a top leader of
the powerful Gulf cartel, was killed Friday in a ferocious gun battle
with military forces in the northern border state that had long been
his tightly controlled home turf.

Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, alias Tony Tormenta or Tony the
Storm, was killed along with three of his henchmen after hours of
battle in the city of Matamoros, in Tamaulipas state just across the
border from Brownsville, Texas, the Mexican government announced.

Two members of the Mexican navy's special forces were also killed, as
was a Mexican reporter. It was unclear whether other civilians died.

Cardenas, 48, had acted as one of two top commanders of the Gulf
cartel after his brother, Osiel, longtime leader of the group, was
captured in 2003 and extradited to the United States, where he was
sentenced to 25 years in U.S. prison in February and ordered to
forfeit $50 million in assets.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had offered a reward of up
to $5 million for Cardenas' capture and is believed to have provided
intelligence to Mexican authorities in the pursuit of the drug lord.

The death of Cardenas will be seen as an important victory for
beleaguered President Felipe Calderon, who nearly four years ago
launched a military offensive against drug cartels that has claimed
about 30,000 lives.

"Today marks a new, significant step in efforts to dismantle these
criminal bands who so damage the population of our country," said the
government's national security spokesman, Alejandro Poire.

Still, any significant setback for drug trafficking or a halt to
violence remains uncertain because commanders are readily replaced,
and the demise of one leader often triggers an even bloodier power struggle.

The Gulf cartel for many years was Mexico's most powerful trafficking
organization, second only to the older Sinaloa cartel, based in the
Pacific state of the same name. The Gulf group has held sway over all
of the large state of Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico that borders
Texas and provides important smuggling routes into the U.S. It
controls police and politicians, buys off businessmen and intimidates
journalists.

The Gulf cartel beefed up its firepower about a decade ago by
recruiting and building the Zetas paramilitary force, which was
initially the organization's armed wing. This year, however, the
Zetas, like Frankenstein, turned on their masters, broke away to form
their own trafficking racket and declared bitter war on Cardenas and
his cohorts.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the fight between the Gulf
cartel and the Zetas, with the latter group, an especially ruthless
band, steadily gaining territory.

Mexican and U.S. authorities had been stepping up the pressure to
capture Cardenas, who is said to have lived relatively openly in
Matamoros. His wife lives in Houston, according to Mexican government
documents.

His DEA mug shot, a rare photograph, shows a man with dark, wavy
hair, a mustache and a gold chain around his neck.

"He was considered a very dangerous figure ... very bloodthirsty,"
Ricardo Ravelo, author of several books on Mexican drug trafficking,
said Friday night in a radio interview.

He was a stone-hearted thug, Ravelo said, who tortured and beheaded
victims and didn't hesitate to kill. He had fully half of the
Tamaulipas police force at his service and providing protection, Ravelo added.

Mexican authorities also placed Cardenas on their most-wanted list
and offered a bounty of about $2 million. Government documents accuse
Cardenas of planning and supervising the flow of cocaine, marijuana
and synthetic drugs into the U.S. and the collection of bribe and
extortion money in Tamaulipas.

Friday's daylong gunfights throughout Matamoros between cartel hit
men and Mexican soldiers and marines plunged the city into chaos and
panic, witnesses said, as armed men plowed through streets on the
backs of pickup trucks.

Residents rushed in helter-skelter traffic to get home; many remained
trapped in their offices. Cellphone service went down, further
stoking fears as bursts of high-caliber weaponry could be heard for
hours. International bridges into Texas were closed for a time.

Most of the fighting barely made a ripple in national news here in
Mexico because local reporters in Tamaulipas, out of fear or
corruption, have been trained to ignore cartel activities. Only when
a journalist for a Matamoros newspaper was killed in the gun battle
did the news begin to trickle out.

On Friday evening, the government announced the death of Tony Tormenta.