GANGS TURN NUEVO LAREDO STREETS INTO FREE-FIRE ZONES

Residents Afraid To Talk About Daily Violence In City Along Texas Border

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Warring Mexican gangs fought a pitched battle with
bazookas and grenades late Thursday in a middle-class neighborhood of this
border city, terrorizing citizens who say they live in a "Baghdad-like" war
zone.

The battle was so fierce that the U.S. ambassador in Mexico City announced
Friday that he was closing the consulate in Nuevo Laredo until at least
Aug. 8. The announcement called the battle "an alarming incident" that
involved "unusually advanced weaponry." U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said
U.S. officials will use the week to assess security.

Heavy weaponry

For more than 30 minutes Thursday, the sharp report of automatic-weapons
fire, punctuated by thumping explosions, could be heard throughout the
city. After the fighting had ended, the street where the confrontation had
taken place bore all the signs of combat. The house at the fighting's
center was riddled with holes the size of melons. Part of it had collapsed.
A building across the street was pocked with holes, indicating a fierce
response with heavy weapons.

Hundreds of bullet casings from AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons
littered the street. Cars, many with Texas plates, lay like victims, their
windows shattered and their bodies scourged by bullet holes.

There was no official police version of the events Friday. Police said no
one had been injured or killed, but splotches of blood stained the streets
when a reporter and photographer arrived minutes after the shooting stopped.

The battle offered a glimpse of the challenge facing the Mexican police and
army as they try to root out rival drug gangs battling for control of this
critical border region south of Texas. Some 300 heavily armed soldiers in
tanks, accompanied by state, city and judicial police and federal
investigators, cordoned off the street while they inspected the devastated
house and talked to neighbors. Most neighbors claimed they had heard
nothing, even though the sound of explosions reverberated throughout this
city of nearly half a million.

Those who did talk told a confusing tale of gunmen wearing the uniforms of
the Federal Agency of Investigation, Mexico's FBI, arriving in front of the
house at 2411 Mexicali St. in southern Nuevo Laredo, about two miles from
the U.S. border, at about 8 p.m.

"Suddenly there were explosions; they launched bazookas and grenades and
machine guns," said one man who witnessed the battle for about 20 minutes.
Standing in a corner, the man pleaded that his name be withheld. "They'll
kill me. It's become so dangerous," he said before rushing off into the night.

Long gunbattle

Some neighbors said the fighting started earlier. "My husband and I went
out at 6 p.m. because we started hearing gunshots, but then there were more
and more and more until it sounded like explosions, bombs, and we went back
home scared," said a woman who would give her name only as Hilda. Hilda
said she lives in the adjacent neighborhood of Guerrero, next to the Madero
suburb where the fighting took place.

Police at the site said they found three AK-47 rifles, a grenade, two
handguns, ski masks and hundreds of bullets of different calibers.

Authorities wouldn't comment on why they thought the house had been
targeted. Some neighbors and police claimed it was a safe house used by
drug smugglers or kidnappers.

The fighting was the sort of violence outsiders rarely see, but soldiers
and police at the scene said it was daily fare. The U.S. State Department
has issued a warning urging U.S. citizens to stay clear of border areas.

"Obviously, but unofficially, gangs, mafias are trying to establish control
of this city and that's why we have this wave of violence," Juan Antonio
Jara, the interim chief state police investigator, said Thursday afternoon,
hours before the night violence.

Jara blamed the violence on outsiders.

Since January, more than 100 people have been killed in Nuevo Laredo. Human
rights groups say that in the past two years more than 400 people have been
kidnapped, including more than 40 Americans. Authorities have said the
violence is a war between Mexico's two most powerful drug gangs to control
key routes.