A MEXICAN CARTEL ARMY'S WAR WITHIN

Hit Men Known As the Zetas Are Aiming at Their Own As a Power Struggle Spreads.

VERACRUZ, MEXICO -- The two thoroughbreds sprinted down a country
track, a few million dollars in the bettors' kitty and an
old-fashioned camera waiting at the finish line.

When the race was over, as veterinarians guided the expensive equines
back to their air-conditioned trailers, gamblers at the private track
began to argue over the nose-to-nose conclusion. Among them were
members of a band of hit men known as the Zetas, employees of the
Gulf cartel of drug traffickers.

Let's just wait for the film to be developed, someone said.

Then, above the din, another voice rang out. "I've come to kill you!"

A new chapter was being added to the violent saga of Mexico's most
notorious drug ring. More than a dozen people may have been killed in
the gunfire that followed, an ambush in which the hit men appear to
have attacked one another.

The Zetas were Mexico's first drug cartel army, and in many ways they
and their employers are responsible for the militarization of the
country's drug conflict. President Felipe Calderon deployed the
national army this year to fight traffickers in several Mexican states.

The March shootout at the Villarin track was one of many bloody
episodes in what appears to be an escalating power struggle within
the Gulf cartel. Experts say the increase in tension was triggered by
the January deportation of reputed cartel leader Osiel Cardenas to
face trafficking charges in the U.S.

"The cartel has split," Genaro Garcia Luna, public security minister
and Mexico's top cop, said last week. "This has generated a new wave
of violence as they fight over the regions Osiel controlled."

The cartel, based in the border state of Tamaulipas, grew wealthy and
powerful thanks to the U.S. appetite for Colombian cocaine, and both
of its branches remain potent forces in Mexico. Almost every week, a
new act of cruelty, boldness or stupidity by the Zetas plays out in
the country's tabloids and newscasts.

Military Roots

Before the 1990s, groups based in the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa
dominated Mexico's drug trade. The country's traffickers were
becoming cash-rich as Colombian cartels increasingly ceded key
smuggling routes into the U.S. to them.

To challenge the dominance of the Sinaloans, the ascendant Gulf
cartel began recruiting soldiers from the army. The Zetas were born.

Their founder was a former army officer who had deserted: Lt. Arturo
Guzman Decena, known as Zeta 1. He reportedly received training from
the Israeli military.

According to the attorney general's office, Guzman is believed to
have recruited several soldiers from his paratrooper brigade and at
least 40 former members of the Mexican special forces.

"They brought the ideas of counterinsurgency and psychological
warfare to the drug business," said Luis Astorga, an expert on the
industry. "The idea is that if you paralyze your adversaries with
fear, you've won half the battle."

The Zetas' mission was to wrest from Sinaloa and other groups the
Gulf cartel's "right" to smuggle drugs through a given port or border city.

"The drug world is like any other business," Astorga said. "You try
to take territory and profits from your rivals. But there are no
courts to settle disputes. There is only violence."

The Gulf traffickers took advantage of the low pay and high desertion
rate of the Mexican army, where one in eight soldiers deserts every
year. Cartel members reportedly enticed the troops with large sums of
cash and positions of responsibility, something the Sinaloa
traffickers still shy away from.

"With the Sinaloa group, family ties have always been important,"
Astorga said. "To them, bringing in soldiers and giving them power
was like admitting a Trojan horse into the fold."

Raul Benitez, a Mexico security expert at American University in
Washington, says the Gulf cartel valued the army veterans for their
knowledge of weapons and explosives. (In Mexico, the army regulates
all firearms.)

As the Zetas gained strength, they brought increasingly powerful
weaponry into the drug war, including .50-caliber machine guns
originally designed as antiaircraft weapons. In recent years, grenade
attacks on police stations have become common.

New Recruits

In popular legend, the Zetas are gunslingers with bazookas and
military experience. They pull off killings that suggest a certain
level of tactical training: In February, for example, they donned
army uniforms to enter two Acapulco police stations and kill seven
officers and employees.

But like many legends, the Zeta myth is built around a core truth
that fades deeper into history each year.

Guzman -- Zeta 1 -- was killed in 2002 in a shootout with the army in
Matamoros. As many of the other original hit men fell, the cartel
sought new firepower, first recruiting members of the Guatemalan
special forces, the Kaibiles.

Many of the original Zetas are dead or in prison, Mexican authorities
say. U.S. officials say current members probably were recruited from
the ranks of Mexico's urban and rural poor.

"It's gotten to the point where you get drunk, shoot at some cans and
paint your face black, and that makes you a Zeta," said a U.S.
official who asked not to be named. "A lot of it is image and myth."

"They are young people between 25 and 30 years old," said Garcia
Luna, the public security minister, adding that the recruits are
drawn by the aura of wealth and power surrounding the Zetas. "If you
look at them face to face, you can see who they really are: people of
lower social status and poor education."

In the racetrack shootout, the number and names of those killed
remain a mystery, like much about the Zetas.

According to news reports, at least one high-ranking hit man died:
Efrain Torres, also known as Zeta 14 or the Spark. Federal
authorities say one other man was killed. But his name is a state
secret and won't be released until 2019.

Residents say the Zetas may have secretly buried as many as a dozen other men.

After the shootout, attacks and counterattacks spread throughout
Veracruz state. A police chief was killed. Several journalists and
government officials were accused of being Zeta collaborators and
went into hiding. Someone dumped a severed head at a newspaper office.

The violence even reached a cemetery 100 miles away.

"They tied up the guard, broke through a few layers of concrete and
pulled out the coffin," said Raul Vargas, director of a funeral home
and cemetery in the town of Poza Rica, describing how men believed to
be Zetas stole the corpse of the recently buried Zeta 14.

"This was one of our deluxe coffins, so it was pretty heavy. They
loaded it on a truck and then they were gone."

Spreading Violence

The escalating violence has gone beyond internal strife. In recent
weeks, Zetas and the Gulf cartel have been linked to slayings in
Sonora, Guerrero, Michoacan and other states. In some cases, the
Zetas have been the victims of gruesome attacks.

In March, a half-naked man with a Z painted on his stomach was
videotaped while being tortured and interrogated by unidentified
captors. On tape, the man confesses to his role in the Acapulco
police killings. In video posted and then quickly removed from
YouTube, he is strangled and decapitated.

The tape is one of dozens of "narco messages" that have surfaced as
the drug cartels wage propaganda wars against one another and the authorities.

The messages usually take the form of notes left next to corpses.
Often they are attempts to spread disinformation, analysts say. They
may name government and police officials as being the accomplices of
rival cartels, creating the sense that anyone and everyone is tainted
by drug corruption.

One such message aired in March on the Azteca television network,
three weeks after the racetrack shootout. In a videotape, two alleged
Zetas from Veracruz confess to their unseen captors that they
committed a series of crimes, including 23 killings. A local police
chief was killed, one says, because he failed to prevent federal
police from arresting Zetas wounded in the shootout "even though he
knew he was getting money from the cartel."

A newspaper editor was killed, one man says, "because he wrote a lot
of things against the cartel, affecting our relationship with the authorities."

The tape names two columnists, including one from the newspaper
Notiver, as paid Zeta collaborators. In the newsroom, a reporter
called that allegation pure fiction.

"I know those two people, and they live ordinary lives," said the
reporter, who asked not to be named. The reporter sees the missive as
an attempt to spread fear and confusion.

"There's a collective psychosis because every night there are new
reports of attacks," the reporter said. "This kind of drug war is
something we've never seen in Veracruz before."

About 20 more people have been killed in Veracruz since the racetrack shooting.

All along the Gulf Coast, in the small towns where they commonly
operate, the cartel's gunmen remain as conspicuous as an invading
army. The residents learned quickly never to stare, despite the
gold-plated rifles the men carry and the late-model SUVs they drive.

In Coatzacoalcos, 130 miles south of Veracruz, a newspaper
photographer encountered five armed men on the street one day in
March as they were being detained by police. The suspects had
military-style haircuts, machine guns and designer shoes, said the
photographer, who asked not to be named.

They seemed unfazed by their detention, telling the officers, "You
probably just better let us go now before this problem gets more serious."

Only later did the photographer realize what had happened. He had
looked into the faces of some of Mexico's most dangerous men and
lived to tell the tale.