MEXICO: Profile Of Alleged San Fernando Mass Murderer...The Narco El Kilo.

AP / M.HERALD/ 3 screens combined / M.STEVENSON, S.DININNY

  "When he was deported from the U.S. to Mexico for the third time, Martin Estrada Luna (above) was a high school dropout with a rap sheet of petty crimes like burglary.
    Less than two years later, Mexican authorities say, he has transformed himself into a drug baron known as El Kilo, the leader of a ruthless cell of the Zetas gang who masterminded the mass killings of more than 250 people. He is now under arrest in Mexico City.
    Mexican prosecutors have not presented any evidence publicly to support their claim that he was responsible for the deaths of 72 migrants in August and 183 people months later. The Mexican government often announces big arrests immediately after high-profile crimes, but according to its own statistics, three-quarters of those initially accused as drug traffickers or assassins are let go without charges."

MEXICO: "Genocide" In Tamaulipas Horrifies Nation; Is It A "Failed State"?

LATIMES/ T. Wilkinson
2 screen read combined

   The recent discovery of 177 bodies from unmarked graves in San Fernando, Tamaulipas has horrified the public.
   Some commentators are calling the murders: "our Auschwitz" and a "Mexican genocide."
   Apparently the murders had been going on for months "...and no one, not the bus companies, nor the police, nor the officials in charge, acted to stop it."
   Officials believe most of the victims were bus passengers, who were tortured and slaughtered.
   Women were raped before being killed...and some were burned alive.
   "If Tamaulipas is not a failed state, or a narco-state, it sure looks like one," political analyst Alfonso Zarate said. "The institutional powers are incapable of upholding the law."

MEXICO: 32 More Bodies Found In San Fernando, Tamaulipas; Total Now Is 177!

AP/ M.HERALD/ O. Rodriguez

    Discoveries of bodies in the violence and death cursed city of San Fernando, Tamaulipas...continued with 32 more...found in 8 narcofosas.
   The monthly total for just that city...is now 177.
   EL UNIVERSAL columnist Miguel Carbonell writes that the clandestine graves are discovered with such numbing regularity that "at this point nothing shocks us".

MEXICO: How Could Calderon Have Allowed San Fernando Massacres To Happen...Twice?

AP/ A. GOMEZ LICON and K. CORCORAN
3 screen read...combined

AP:      "How could bodies pile up again in a place just 90 miles from the U.S. border where 72 migrants were slaughtered eight months ago, then the worst mass murder of innocents in Mexico's fight against organized crime?
     And how could these new horrors emerge only five months after state and federal authorities announced with much fanfare that they were mounting a coordinated offensive to take Tamaulipas back from the hands of warring drug cartels?"
AND:     "Tamaulipas presents a complex situation that even federal forces can't handle. Generations of mistrust complicate the federal effort, as well as links between local officials and organized crime dating back to the 1920s Prohibition era in the U.S., when the border state became a popular smuggling route for liquor.
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     I recall human rights watchers for years asking how hundreds...perhaps thousands... of young women...could be killed or just "disappear" during the 90's...in another part of Mexico...the area that is today...the most dangerous city in the world...Cd. Juarez.

MEXICO: 13 April UPDATE: 32 More Bodies Found; New Total Of 120 Discovered In San Fernando, Tamaulipas...A Deserted "City of Death"...From Narco Violence.

WSJ/ N. Casey/

"Almost eight months ago, residents in the rural Mexican county of San Fernando received startling news: The bodies of 72 immigrants traveling to the U.S. had been discovered on a secluded ranch after the group had been lined up, blindfolded and shot dead.
   Now, the sense of horror has returned. Last week, officials said they had discovered mass graves on another secluded ranch there. Some 88 dead have been unearthed so far as forensics teams continue to dig for others.
    That history has repeated itself in San Fernando may be no surprise. It fits the profile of a lawless county:  Fewer than 60,000 people live in an expanse of hundreds of square miles..."

FOR NEW BBC coverage on San Fernando:
    Residents only found out about the massacres by chance.
   "It starts to smell bad because there is a funeral house close to where we walk every day,"said  one citizen.

   The state of Tamaulipas is the size of the Czech Republic and virtually paralyzed by violence.
   "Neither the regional nor federal government have control over the territory of Tamaulipas," says  D.F. security analyst Alberto Islas.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13061452

MEXICO: 28 Jan. UPDATE: American Missionary Dies After Highway Attack Near Reynosa.

BOSTON GLOBE /

    An American missionary shot in Mexico may have been targeted for the $50,000 Chevy truck she was riding in.
    Nancy Davis, 59, died in a McAllen Texas hospital after being wounded south of Reynosa and rushed across the Rio Grande from Mexico.
  Sam Davis said that he and his wife were traveling about 70 miles south of the border when gunmen in a pickup truck tried to stop them. The gunmen fired and wounded his wife in the head.
 Mexican authorities confirm that the shooting occurred near San Fernando, about 70 miles south of Reynosa in an area controlled by the vicious Los Zetas narco terrorists.

MEXICO: 2ND UPDATE: 2 Bombs Explode In C. Victoria Where Slain Migrants Are Guarded.

LINK CHANGE /WSJ / DAVID LUHNOW/ 27 AUG/  
   Two car bombs exploded outside a TV station and a police offices in Ciudad Victoria where officials are investigating the brutal murders of 72 migrants from Central and South America. The bodies of 58 men and 14 women were found after a gun battle in Tamaulipas with suspected drug terrorists that left one marine and three suspects dead. Migrants are increasingly targeted by drug gangs for ransom. Officials say the area is controlled by Los Zetas, which has branched into kidnapping migrants. Photos show bodies lying along the walls of an abandoned warehouse, some blindfolded with their hands tied behind their back. Marines are protecting the funeral home where the bodies were taken after being discovered bound, blindfolded and slumped against a wall.