YOUTH SUSPECTED AS CARTEL HIT MAN

MEXICO CITY-Mexican troops arrested a 14-year-old U.S. citizen
suspected of being a hit man for a drug cartel and beheading his
victims, the latest shocking development in Mexico's war on
drug-trafficking gangs.

Edgar Jimenez was captured late Thursday at an airport in Cuernavaca,
a tourist destination about an hour south of Mexico City, as he
attempted to board a flight to Tijuana, the Mexican army said in a
statement.

The teenager-short and slight with curly black hair-was allegedly
trying to make his way back to San Diego, where he has lived
previously and where his stepmother is believed to live, officials
said.

The boy belonged to a youth gang that became notorious last month
after pictures posted online showed members posing with assault rifles
next to their victims. Other members of the gang appeared to be in
their early teens.

The army said Mr. Jimenez was captured along with two of his teenage
sisters, one of whom the Army suspects of being a girlfriend of a
leader in the Beltran Leyva cartel. The Beltran Leyva drug gang, named
for the brothers who founded it, is originally from Sinaloa state in
western Mexico but has much of its operations in the country's central
region.

In a postarrest presentation by officials to the media, Mr. Jimenez
acknowledged that he had killed several people, at least four of whom
he decapitated. He said he acted under the influence of drugs and was
pressured to carry out the killings by the top hit man of the cartel
in the state of Morelos, Julio Raquilla, called "El Negro," or "The
Black One."

Authorities said they have no more information about Mr. Jimenez's
background except for what the boy said was documentation from San
Diego.

The boy said that when he was age 12, he was picked up by Mr. Raquilla
and given drugs. Mr. Jimenez was then pressured to carry out killings,
he said. Asked if he regretted his actions, the boy said "yes, I'm
sorry I got involved with all this."

Criminal activity by minors is on the rise in much of Mexico, where
children in towns without much economic opportunity view wealthy drug
lords as a model. One survey in Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of
Mexico's drug-related violence, showed children as young as nine years
old wanted to join a drug gang.

"The kids [in narcotics cartels] are getting younger and younger,"
says Bruce Bagley, a Latin America expert at the University of Miami.
"Mexico has fallen into a spiral that will scar a whole generation.
Life is cheap and getting cheaper."

Mexicans vented their frustration online at their own country's lack
of progress.

"Look at what we've created: lack of a proper education, lack of
opportunities, lack of a healthy social environment. A perfect
cocktail for young people to join narcotics gangs," an individual who
identified himself as Benito Camelo wrote on the online comments page
of Mexico's leading newspaper, Reforma.

Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed more than 30,000 lives
since President Felipe Calderon took power and declared war on drug
gangs. The barbarity of the killing has escalated. On Friday, the
heads of three men turned up in a plastic bag in southern Guerrero
state. The skin had been flayed from their faces.

As the ages of killers drop, so do the ages of law-enforcement
personnel tasked with catching them. One town in Chihuahua appointed a
20-year-old college student, a female, as police chief because no one
else wanted the job.

Jose de Cordoba contributed to this article.