NATIONAL SECURITY AGENT SLAIN ON MEXICAN BORDER; DRUG WAR CITED

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) A regional director of Mexico's main intelligence
agency was slain in the border city of Tijuana, the 11th person killed this
week in what authorities say is an escalating drug war.

Jose Juan Palafox, Tijuana chief for the Center for Investigation and
National Security, was gunned down at midnight on Friday, said Jorge
Campos, the federal deputy Attorney General in charge of the case.

On Thursday, Campos announced that Tijuana, which lies across the border
from San Diego, and Mexicali to the east had turned into battlegrounds of a
turf war between surviving members of the Arellano Felix drug organization
and a rival drug trafficker, Ismael Zambada.

Benjamin Arellano Felix, leader of the Arellano Felix organization, was
arrested by federal agents in March, while his brother Ramon, the gang's
enforcer, died at the hands of police in February.

But authorities said others continue to run the organization, using the
border city to smuggle tons of cocaine and marijuana into California and
the western United States. Zambada, who has been trying to challenge the
Arellano Felixes' authority in Tijuana for almost a decade, heads a
free-lance group of smugglers based in Mazatlan, a resort city on Mexico's
Pacific coast.

Seven of the slayings in the past week took place in Mexicali, a border
city about 95 miles east of Tijuana, and the rest occurred in Tijuana. The
bodies of most of the victims bore signs of torture, including mutilations
and burns, investigators said.

Palafox was shot numerous times. His body was found in the passenger side
of his car.