U.S. WARNS OF MEXICO PERIL

Consulate Says Americans May Be Targets of Drug Gangs; 32 More Bodies
Found

MEXICO CITY-For the first time in Mexico's drug war, the U.S.
government said its employees and citizens could be the targets of
drug gangs in three Mexican states, a disclosure that could signal
danger for Americans south of the border.

The little-noticed warning, published last Friday in a warden's
message from the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, said U.S.
officials had "information that Mexican criminal gangs may intend to
attack U.S. law-enforcement officers or U.S. citizens in the near
future in Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and San Luis Potosi."

In Tamaulipas state, 32 bodies were found in mass graves on a ranch on
Tuesday, bringing the total discovered there since last week to 120,
authorities said. On Friday, the U.S. State Department said an
American man was reported kidnapped from a bus in the state, but it
wasn't known if he was among the dead.

The Consulate's message could have major implications for Americans
across Mexico, who have lived in and visited the country under
assurances from both governments that drug-related violence wasn't
directed toward them. An estimated one million U.S. citizens live in
Mexico and millions more visit each year.

Among the cities covered in the warning is Monterrey, the country's
northern business hub where U.S. companies like Whirlpool Corp. and
General Electric Co. have their regional bases.

Tamaulipas state shares 230 miles of border with Texas and handles
important cross-border traffic through Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa; San
Luis Potosi is a popular tourist destination, famous for its silver
mines.

Whirlpool declined to comment on the warning. GE didn't immediately
have a comment.

A division president of one major U.S. company canceled a planned
visit to Monterrey scheduled for the end of April after the Consulate
warning, company officials said.

U.S. State Department officials wouldn't comment on what triggered the
warning.

"My guess is that this is a generic threat that they want to take
seriously but not send people into panic mode," said Eric Olson, a
senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars. "Phrases like 'may intend' and 'near future' sound very
unspecific to me, although worrisome nonetheless."

Mexican officials had no immediate comment on the warning, which
seemed sure to add to rising tensions between Washington and Mexico
City over the drug war. U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual was pressured
to resign recently after comments he made about the Mexican army's
inefficiency in diplomatic cables and published by WikiLeaks angered
President Felipe Calderon.

Until recently, experts and officials on both sides of the border
agreed that Mexican drug cartels focused their attacks on rivals and
the occasional Mexican law-enforcement official but had little
incentive to target outsiders.

Recent events have begun to call that assumption into question,
including the killing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officer and the wounding of another in San Luis Potosi in February by
gunmen from a drug gang.

"This is definitively an increase in the level of concern," said Jay
Cope, a senior fellow at Washington's National Defense University. The
incidents involving Americans make people wonder if "we are beginning
to see a pattern begin to emerge now that hadn't seemed to be a
pattern before," Mr. Cope said.

Last year, 107 American citizens were victims of homicide in Mexico,
according to the State Department, up from 77 homicides the year before.

The warning followed the recent grisly discovery of mass graves on a
ranch in the Tamaulipas county of San Fernando. The fact that there
are at least a dozen graves suggests victims may have been killed in
separate incidents.

Mexican authorities are pointing to a criminal gang known as Los
Zetas, one of Mexico's most powerful and barbaric drug gangs, which
officials say had stopped buses on state highways and kidnapped passengers.

The fact that the warning focuses on three states where Los Zetas is
active suggests that gang might be the one to potentially target U.S.
citizens, analysts said. In the past year, Los Zetas have come under
intense pressure from rivals in the trade and Mexico's army and police
forces.

"The Zetas have become so disorganized or so desperate that they could
take action against U.S. citizens," said Andrew Selee, director of the
Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, adding
that the discovery of the mass graves "suggests their behavior has now
passed the bounds of rational thinking, even for criminal
enterprise."

Not everyone agreed. Raul Benitez, a security expert at National
Autonomous University of Mexico, doubted that U.S. law enforcement
agents or tourists are in danger of becoming targets for the cartels.
"The narcos don't target gringos-they are too scared of U.S.
intelligence services," he said.

An exodus of Americans already began last year in the business hub of
Monterrey, as some executives and their families moved north to Texas
or south to Mexico City. Caterpillar Inc. said last year it had
relocated some 40 employees and their family members from places in
Mexico, including Monterrey.

Dave Long, the pastor at the Union Church in Monterrey, said a few of
his church members had expressed worry about the new consular warning.
Mr. Long said the church has lost about 50 families of the
congregation in the past year, the vast majority Americans leaving due
to security concerns. For his part, Mr. Long said he is staying in
Monterrey and takes normal precautions, like not driving late at night
or to the border through neighboring Tamaulipas state. "I survived Idi
Amin in Uganda, so we aren't planning to leave," he said.

In a recent survey of businesses by the American Chamber of Commerce
in Mexico, 67% reported their member company felt less secure than the
year before, with more than half attributing the problems to organized
crime groups.

This year has included some grisly slayings of Americans. In January,
Nancy Davis, a 59-year-old missionary was shot in the head after being
ambushed in her car near San Fernando. Her husband raced her car
across a border bridge against traffic into Texas, where she later
died.

And last year David Hartley, an American riding a jet ski on the
Mexican side of a lake on the Texas border was abducted, his body
never found. Shortly afterward, the severed head of a detective on the
case was found in front of a Mexican army barracks.

Mr. Benitez said the target audience of the Warden statement could be
the Mexican government. "It's a warning to the Mexican government to
better control those areas," Mr. Benitez said.

- -James R. Hagerty, Clare Ansberry and David Luhnow contributed to this
article.