Mexican Drug Wars Spread to Touristy Yucatan

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 30, 2008 12:38 PM CDT
Mexican Drug Wars Spread to Touristy Yucatan
A police car patrols at the Libertad neighborhood, near the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, June 26, 2008.    (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

As drug violence soars in Mexico, casualties are spreading to the Yucatan peninsula, a major tourist destination and spring break hot spot. Twelve decapitated bodies were found near the popular ruins of Chichen Itza this week, the Los Angeles Times reports. That's because a government crackdown has heightened “a kind of civil war among drug cartels,” said a drug-trafficking expert. And that violence is spilling over from the usual frontlines along the US border.

The beheadings and the bodies' locations are no accident, some analysts say: The drug traffickers want scared civilians to urge the government to leave the cartels alone. But the government says the spreading violence just means its tactics are working. Said the attorney general: "They have to respond in a symbolic way that creates uncertainty in the public."
(More drug cartel stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X