DOZENS OF BODIES ARE FOUND IN MEXICO

MEXICO CITY-The bodies of about 60 people were found in mass graves on
a ranch in northern Mexico Wednesday, marking both one of the
grizzliest finds by Mexican police this year and the second time
scores of dead were found in the same secluded town of San Fernando.

The bodies were found in an area called La Joya in Tamaulipas state,
said Ruben Dario, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office. Eight
graves were uncovered, the largest of which contained 43 people.

Mr. Dario did not comment on the motive for the crime. A statement
from the state prosecutor's office released Wednesday evening said 11
men had been arrested at the crime scene, and five people were still
being held captive there when police arrived.

Investigators were looking into whether those in the grave were among
a group of passengers kidnapped on a highway earlier this year, the
statement said. In the past, such killings have been the work of
Mexican crime groups attempting to extract ransom money from kidnap
victims who they hold in so-called safe houses.

In a statement, Mexican President Felipe Calderon called the killings
an act of "cowardice" which showed "a total lack of conscience with
which criminal organizations operate."

The graves-shocking even by Mexican standards where drug-related
killings have become frequent-are also bound cause new difficulties
for President Calderon who has seen public support erode for his
offensive against the country's crime groups.

Authorities have tried to temper nerves by touting successes in
capturing top leaders of drug gangs. But the strategy has done little
to slow the acceleration of violent killings in the country,
particularly in northern Mexico, and the carnage has claimed more than
35,000 lives since a government assault on the drug gangs began in
2006.

The massacre also throws a spotlight on the rising lawlessness of
Tamaulipas state, which shares 230 miles of border with Texas and
where 72 immigrants were killed in the very same town last August.

The dead, found on a remote ranch there, included immigrants from
Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador and Brazil. After being captured by
assailants seeking a ransom, the immigrants were bound, blindfolded
and executed. Days later, the chief of police and an investigator
assigned to the case were found dead as well. Authorities attributed
the crimes to a drug group called Los Zetas.

Tamaulipas' profile as a drug trafficking state has risen in recent
years as drug gangs escalate brutality against each other and innocent
victims.

George W. Grayson, a professor at the College of William & Mary who
has written about the Tamaulipas drug groups says the state government
in the past managed to contain crime by informally supporting the Gulf
Cartel, a powerful group that once held a monopoly on regional drug
trafficking. But more drug gangs arrived in recent years and now the
state is "completely paralyzed" in how to manage them, he says. "It's
reflective of similar situations across the country."

Last year an American riding a jet ski on Falcon Reservoir, on the
U.S. border, was shot dead by suspected cartel gunmen, his body never
recovered. Days later, the severed head of the lead Mexican
investigator on the case was found in front of a Mexican army facility.

Earlier that year, Rodolfo Torre, leading candidate for governor was
shot dead in broad daylight only days before his election. His
brother, who won the election in Mr. Torre's place, vowed to fight
crime by tapping a group former army generals to clean up local police
departments.

But that strategy is struggling too. In January, Gen. Manuel Farfan,
chief of police in the border town Nuevo Laredo, was shot dead barely
a month after accepting the job.