TOLL OF DRUG WAR RISES IN MEXICO

An Anti-Narcotics Official Is Gunned Down, Two Journalists Are
Abducted And An Army Captain Ends Up Slain

MEXICO CITY -- The newly appointed head of a drug intelligence unit
in the attorney general's office was shot and killed Monday in a
street ambush here that dealt a new blow to President Felipe
Calderon's campaign against this nation's drug traffickers.

Officials said several assailants waited for Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix,
director of the attorney general's "Information Against Delinquency"
unit, trapping his SUV on a narrow street. Such assassinations have
become common in many border and port cities of Mexico but are rare
in the nation's capital.

Lugo Felix had been appointed in April to head the unit specializing
in the analysis of data about the activities of Mexico's drug
cartels, officials said. He was shot as he drove his vehicle during
rush hour just outside an office of the attorney general in the
southern Coyoacan district, a center of the city's arts community.

The method of the assault "leads us to presume it was a planned
execution," Victor Corzo, an official with the attorney general's
office, told reporters. "It could be related to drug traffickers
because he was someone who possessed information." The slain official
was a veteran anti-crime "strategist," Corzo added.

The killing came as apparent drug-related violence continued unabated
across the country.

Over the weekend, two journalists for the Azteca television network
were reported missing and assumed kidnapped in the northern city of
Monterrey. An army captain was kidnapped and slain in Chilpancingo,
the capital of Guerrero state, on the Pacific Coast. Both regions
have seen increasing violence as drug cartels fight one another for
lucrative trade routes to the United States, while also battling the
police and the army.

A report by the attorney general's office published Monday in the
Mexico City newspaper Milenio said the drug war has intensified
because the nation's two most powerful trafficking organizations are
fighting over territory in six states: Guerrero, Michoacan, Oaxaca,
Veracruz, Tabasco and Quintana Roo.

The rival traffickers are seeking to control rural areas where opium
poppies and marijuana are grown, as well as key maritime shipping
routes for Colombian cocaine that passes through Mexico on its way to
the United States, the report said.

Lugo Felix had previously run a unit in the attorney general's office
that investigated child and immigrant smuggling, authorities said.

His attackers used a red Pontiac to block his path, officials said.
Gunmen emerged from the car and opened fire, striking him three times
in the head. The assailants fled, abandoning the car, which turned
out to be stolen, officials said.

In Monterrey, reporter Gamaliel Lopez Candanosa and cameraman Gerardo
Paredes Perez have not been seen since Thursday, Azteca television
said in a press release Sunday.

The two men were last seen after covering a Mother's Day event
Thursday, the television network said. Dozens of police officers and
government officials have been killed in the Monterrey area in the last year.

Lopez Candanosa was a general assignment reporter who only
occasionally covered the region's drug wars, officials said. He
reported in July on the discovery of a severed head and a threatening
"narco message" in the city.

Mexico City newspaper El Universal said more than 1,000 people have
been killed by organized crime groups this year. The newspaper
Reforma counted 758 killed as of May 1. The Mexican government does
not release an official tally.

Also Monday, a federal police investigator was found shot to death in
Tijuana. Last week, a severed head was deposited at an army base in
Veracruz, a day after Calderon's government announced it would send
troops to the Gulf Coast state to combat the drug trade.

"We'll keep on going when the federal forces get here," read a note
left with the head. It was signed "Z-40," a reference to the Zetas, a
band of enforcers working in behalf of the Gulf cartel.

On Thursday, four government bodyguards assigned to protect the
children of the governor of Mexico state, Enrique Pena Nieto, were
slain in Veracruz while escorting their charges on a beach vacation.

Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera said the act was similar to those that
have become common in states where drug cartels are battling to
control lucrative trafficking routes.

"Just like in Sonora, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Michoacan and Guerrero,
we are facing a national struggle," Herrera told reporters last week.
The first federal forces arrived in the state Saturday.

Veracruz is a new front in the nation's drug wars. According to
published reports, drug traffickers based in the northern Gulf Coast
state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, are fighting rivals based
farther west in the border state of Sinaloa. Each wants control of
smuggling routes along the Gulf of Mexico. There are also reports
that the Tamaulipas traffickers -- the Gulf cartel -- may be
splitting into two rival groups.

Calderon has made the war on drugs the centerpiece of his presidency.
Last week, he created the Corps of Federal Support Forces, an army
unit specializing in anti-drug efforts. The unit will answer directly
to his office.

Calderon sent army troops to Michoacan and Guerrero not long after
taking office in December. The army is seen by many here as one of
the few security institutions still relatively immune to infiltration
by drug traffickers.

At least 11 army troops have been killed this year. Five soldiers
were killed in an ambush in the town of Caracuaro, Michoacan, this month.

"The sacrifice of these patriots will not be in vain," Calderon said
at an event marking Cinco de Mayo. "In honor of their memory, their
deaths will not go unpunished and we will redouble our offensive
against the enemy."

The latest victim, Lugo Felix, had been on the job just a few weeks,
a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said.

"To be honest, I think he was still getting his boxes unpacked," the
spokeswoman said.