DRUG LEADERS FIGHT WAR FOR POWER ON MEXICO'S STREETS

Gunfights Abound in Nuevo Laredo

The lucrative drug trade on the Mexican border seemed up for grabs
after Mexican authorities arrested Osiel Cardenas, the powerful
leader of the Gulf Cartel, nearly three years ago. The rival Sinaloa
Cartel sent Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a young upstart known as La
Barbie, to do the grabbing.

The wave of killings that followed has turned into an all-out drug
war that has spread to almost every corner of Mexico, leaving about
1,000 people dead since March 2003 and bringing harsh criticisms from
Washington about the failure of President Vicente Fox's government to end it.

The most spectacular gunfights began there last spring, federal law
enforcement authorities said, and usually took place from 8 in the
morning to 1 in the afternoon, on the elegant Avenida Colon.

While the number of killings has gone down since Fox sent federal
officers to try to take back control of the city's streets, the
violence has not ended but moved to other parts of Mexico, especially
Michoacan and Acapulco.

The prize is the lucrative land drug routes that carry more than 77
percent of all the cocaine and about 70 percent of all the
methamphetamines sold in the United States.

The rise of men like Valdez, 32, Deputy Attorney General Jose
Santiago Vasconcelos said in an interview, helps explain why. He is
part of a younger generation of rash and ruthless traffickers,
Vasconcelos said, who are fighting to take over the drug trade after
the Fox administration put at least a dozen of the older drug bosses in jail.

The more experienced drug kingpins, Mexican prosecutors said, were
more willing to reach peace among themselves, to respect one
another's territories and to stay out of sight in order not to cause
trouble for local authorities.

New operatives like Valdez, however, fight for all or nothing,
Vasconcelos said. And they seem willing to keep up their fight, no
matter what the cost.

Resorting to Violence

"Why are we in this situation?" Vasconcelos said. "Because the only
leaders who can contain the violence are the ones who are in jail.
The structures they used to maintain -- of corruption and obstruction
of justice -- when we took those away, they were forced to use violence."

La Barbie gets his nickname, the authorities said, because he has the
light complexion and blue eyes of a Ken doll. They have described him
as the mastermind of numerous killings and kidnappings across the
country. They have raided homes that they believe had been rented by
him and found grenades, automatic weapons and police uniforms.

Last week, law enforcement authorities linked Valdez to a video that
appeared to show the interrogation of four bruised and bloody men who
admitted to being hired killers for the Gulf Cartel. The video, which
was sent in an unmarked envelope to The Kitsap Sun in Washington
state and was posted on the Web site of The Dallas Morning News,
ended by showing one of the men being shot in the head. The
authorities said they suspected that Valdez conducted the interrogation.