DRUG LORD SLAIN: 1 BATTLE WON IN MEXICO

Finally some headway for the good guys fighting drug cartels in
Mexico -- a "boss of bosses" has been taken out in a gunbattle with
the Mexican military.

Arturo Beltran Leyva apparently got too brazen with his whereabouts
- -- and brazen has been a catchword in the drug war-riddled country. A
tip led Mexican soldiers to a gated upscale apartment complex in
Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City. Some 200 soldiers raided the
apartment and a two-hour gunbattle ensued. One Mexican soldier was wounded.

Cartel kingpins throughout the country are reputedly running the
politics in some cities, including Nuevo Laredo, and are known to
hire or host celebrities. Texas-based Latin Grammy winner Ramon Ayala
was among those rounded up in a raid on a cartel Christmas party last week.

Earlier this year, a traffic stop found a beauty queen riding in a
vehicle with known cartel members.

Beltran is one of four brothers who split from the Sinaloa cartel and
joined with Los Zetas. That split further stoked the fight for
control of the drug trade. It is cited as one reason for the some
14,000 gangland-style murders in Mexico the past two years. In
Juarez, now the battle hotbed, there have been more than 4,000 of
those murders.

According to U.S. officials, the Beltran Leyva cartel specializes in
importing and then distributing tons of cocaine, along with large
amounts of heroin. Beltran Leyva was among 24 most-wanted Mexican
drug lords. He was known as the "boss of bosses."

This is one battle won by the good guys.