Mexico Under Siege

12,456 SLAIN IN DRUG WAR THIS YEAR, OFFICIALS SAY

More than 12,000 people have died this year in Mexico's drug war,
officials said Thursday, making it the deadliest year since President
Felipe Calderon launched a government crackdown against traffickers in 2006.

The federal attorney general's office said 12,456 people were killed
through Nov. 30.

The overall death toll since the launch of the drug war stands at
30,196, according to figures given to reporters during a year-end
breakfast session with Atty. Gen. Arturo Chavez Chavez.

But that figure appeared to underestimate the toll. Federal officials
announced in August that 28,228 had been killed in the war, meaning
the death rate would have to have slowed considerably since then. But
there has been no sign of easing violence as cartels have remained
locked in fierce turf battles that have most contributed to the rising toll.

Estimates by Mexican intelligence put the death count at about 32,000.

The rising toll represents a political drag on Calderon, who has
sought to assure a jittery public that the crackdown is depleting the
cartels' power as they lose bosses to death and arrest.

Although the administration has contended that the vast majority of
those killed are drug gang henchmen, the bloodletting has left many
Mexicans convinced that the government has lost control of entire
regions, such as the crime-ridden northern border state of Tamaulipas.

In a recent survey by the Mitofsky polling firm, 59% of respondents
said organized-crime groups were winning the war against federal
forces. In a separate poll, 4 in 5 respondents said the country was
more violent than a year before.

On Thursday, more than 30 business and civic groups took out
full-page advertisements in newspapers pleading with the country's
leaders to bring the mayhem under control.

Chavez told reporters that arrests and killings by Mexican forces of
top underworld figures, including the reported slaying last week of a
reputed drug lord in the western state of Michoacan, were taking a
toll on the groups. Chavez said "a lot of evidence" suggested that
Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, alleged leader of the cult-like La Familia
group, was killed in skirmishing with federal forces, though no body
was recovered.

In November, marines killed Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, an alleged
leader of the Gulf cartel, during a battle in Tamaulipas.

"What is clear is that there is a significant weakening of these
criminal structures," Chavez said.

In other developments, Chavez said, officials had not located a
fugitive lawmaker from Michoacan, Julio Cesar Godoy, who this week
was stripped of congressional immunity from charges that he offered
protection and laundered money for La Familia.

Chavez said Mexican authorities would seek the help of Interpol in
the search for Godoy, a member of the left-leaning Democratic
Revolution Party elected in July 2009. The party's congressional
delegation said it had not been in contact with Godoy for at least a week.