IN MEXICO, DEATH TOLL IN DRUG WAR HITS RECORD

MEXICO CITY-The drug-related death toll in Mexico climbed to 15,273 in
2010, the highest casualty rate since the government launched an
assault on powerful cartels in 2006, Mexican officials said.

The staggering toll-higher than combat-related deaths in places like
Iraq and Afghanistan-shows how Mexico is struggling to turn the tide
on drug cartels that are fighting each other to control lucrative
smuggling routes to the U.S.

"We all know we're going through difficult times in matters of public
safety," President Felipe Calderon said in a televised speech minutes
after the figures were announced. He urged Mexicans to be patient with
his government's assault on cartels.

The figures, which don't include killings from crimes of passion, show
Mexico is fast becoming one of the most violent countries. By
comparison, there are about 17,000 homicides annually in the U.S.,
according to U.S. government figures, a country with three times
Mexico's population.

Analysts say the sharp rise in deaths is partly due to the
government's campaign against gangs, including the killing and capture
of dozens of top cartel figures in the past two years. That pressure
on the cartels has led to growing fights among the organizations over
new turf.

"Every time you remove major capos, you have rising fragmentation and
spikes in violence," said Bruce Bagley, a drug expert at the
University of Miami.

Mr. Bagley said he expected violence to continue to rise, although the
fragmentation of the cartels is good news in the longer term because
their ability to challenge the state will weaken.

The rate of killing in Mexico's drug war has escalated steadily since
Mr. Calderon was inaugurated in December 2006, rising from an
estimated 2,800 deaths in 2007 to roughly 9,500 in 2009 to nearly
15,300 last year.

The new figures bring the total number of deaths during Mr. Calderon's
term to 34,612, according to the government. If the violence holds at
current levels for this year and next, Mexico would end Mr. Calderon's
term in 2012 with 65,000 drug-related killings.

The official toll is significantly higher than previous estimates. At
the end of November, Mexican Attorney General Arturo Chavez said there
had been 12,456 drug-related fatalities during the first 11 months of
the year.

The new data come as more Mexicans grow pessimistic about the drug
war. This week, a group of leftist intellectuals called on the
government to call off its offensive against drug gangs. A new survey
shows 54% of Mexicans think violence would diminish if the government
struck a deal with drug lords.

In a meeting with civil society on Wednesday to discuss the drug war,
Mr. Calderon told Mexicans his government was trying to fix decades of
neglect of the country's law-enforcement institutions, such as the
police.

"I am convinced that if we had not acted, the criminals would have
gained even more ground and would have filled most of the spaces in
this country, even the highest spheres of power," he said.

The Calderon administration made big strides in capturing major drug
traffickers during the past year. Of a list of 37 major drug
traffickers published last March, the government has killed or
captured 17, Mr. Calderon said on Wednesday.

High-profile arrests have included Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez and Sergio
"El Grande" Villarreal. Security forces also killed three major
players: the Sinaloa cartel's Ignacio Coronel, La Familia cartel's
Nazario "El Chayo" Moreno, and the Gulf Cartel's Antonio Ezequiel
"Tony Tormenta" Cardenas.

While the killings and arrests suggest Mexico may be generating better
intelligence against drug gangs, or using U.S. intelligence more
quickly, it has yet to translate to a drop in violence year to year.

National Security spokesman Alejandro Poire said despite last year's
carnage, the violence may soon decline. Killings peaked last year
during the third quarter, and fell 10% in the last quarter of the year
from the previous quarter. Mr. Poire said he couldn't predict whether
the decline in killings was temporary.Mr. Poire said 50% of the
drug-related killings were concentrated in three of Mexico's 31 states
and in 73 of the country's almost 2,500 municipalities. The most
violent city: Ciudad Juarez. Mexico's most violent state by far is
Chihuahua within which lies Ciudad Juarez, which sits across the Rio
Grande from El Paso, Texas. Ciudad Juarez has become a battleground
for cartels which employ small armies of gang members as assassins as
they fight a bloody turf war to control routes to the U.S. as well as
a booming local drug market.

The battle between the local Juarez cartel-which is defending its turf
against an assault by the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo"
Guzman, considered Mexico's most powerful drug lord-has turned Ciudad
Juarez, site of many assembly plants which manufacture products for
export to the U.S., into one of the world's deadliest cities, with a
murder rate of about 250 for every 100,000 people.

Sinaloa, Mr. Guzman's home state in western Mexico, is next, followed
by Tamaulipas, a state that borders Texas and Mexico's gulf coast.
Violence in Tamaulipas surged last year after the Gulf Cartel, which
has long controlled the state, split with a group known as the Zetas,
a criminal group originally formed by Mexican army deserters who acted
as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. The violence between the two groups
has also spilled into next door Nuevo Leon state, turning its capital
of Monterrey, Mexico's top business city, into a war zone.

This year, drug violence has flared in the faded Pacific beach resort
of Acapulco, where more than 31 people were killed during the weekend
in internecine warfare between drug gangs fighting for control of the
port. Fifteen of the dead were decapitated.