A team of armed men who arrived in sport utility vehicles and a pickup truck entered the crowded Casino Royale in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey on Aug. 26, ordered the staff and patrons out—and set the building ablaze with a flammable liquid while people were still scrambling for the doors. At least 52 were killed. President Felipe Calderón said: "It is evident we are not facing common delinquents, we are facing true terrorists who have surpassed not only the limits of the law but...respect for life."

US agents have been posted in recent weeks at a Mexican military base to carry out intelligence and planning work with Mexican officials against drug cartels, according to an Aug. 7 article by New York Times reporter Ginger Thompson. The team includes "fewer than two dozen” agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials and "retired military personnel members from the Pentagon's Northern Command," Thompson wrote. They are working at a "compound modeled after "fusion intelligence centers' that the United States operates in Iraq and Afghanistan to monitor insurgent groups." The US is also "considering plans to deploy private security contractors” in a counter-narcotics unit of the Mexican police, according to the article.

Last month, Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla AKA "El Mayito"—the son of Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Ismael Zambada AKA "El Mayo"—filed pleadings in a Chicago federal court accusing the US Justice Department of giving the cartel "carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States." Zambada's pleadings claim that protection included promises to be kept apprised of US and Mexican government investigations close to the "home territories" of cartel leaders so they "could take appropriate actions to evade investigators"—even as the US had indictments, extradition requests, and rewards for the apprehension of the top Sinaloa Cartel leadership.

Police in Mexico City announced the arrest of Óscar Osvaldo García Montoya, AKA "El Compayito" on Aug. 11—purported leader of "La Mano con Ojos" (Hand with Eyes) criminal organization, who is accused in some 900 killings. The raid was carried out by police from the Federal District and México state, with intelligence provided by the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR). El Compayito, originally from Sinaloa, is said to have started his career as a sicario (hitman) for the Beltrán Leyva cartel before breaking off to form his own organization. His collaborators in the Beltran-Leyva cartel were named as Edgar Valdés AKA "La Barbie" and Gerardo Álvarez AKA "El Indio"—who was detained last year, and also said to be fighting his former Beltran-Leyva masters. El Compayito is a deserter from the Mexican navy, where he had achieved the rank of corporal and trained with Guatemala's elite military force, the Kaibiles.

Moisés Montero Álvarez AKA "El Coreano" (The Korean), alleged to be a top leader of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA), was captured by Mexican federal police in the wee hours of Aug. 1 in a raid of a high-end restaurant in the resort city in southern state of Guerrero. Three others were arrested with him, including José Arturo Lareta Álvarez AKA "El Pulpo" (The Octopus) and a 16-year-old boy. Álvarez was wanted in the kidnapping and killing last year of 20 Mexican tourists who were vacationing in Acapulco. The victims worked in a mechanic shop in Michoacán state and traveled together annually to Acapulco. Last year, 22 of the men, driving cars with Michoacán plates, arrived in the city, where they were apparently assumed to be members of the Michoacán Family, a rival of the CIDA. Two of the 22 survived because they were not with the group at the time of the mass abduction. The disappearance of the rest provoked marches by their friends and relatives in Michoacán, who demanded justice. (CNN, Aug. 2; Milenio, Aug. 1)

Mexican governance secretary Francisco Blake Mora held a meeting in Mexico City on July 29 with more than 160 relatives of people who have been "disappeared"—kidnapped by criminals, by the police or by the military. The family members, many carrying photographs of the victims, were demanding action from the federal Governance Secretariat (SG), which is in charge of the country's internal security. The relatives came from a number of states, including Guanajuato, Morelos, Nuevo León, Oaxaca and Zacatecas, but the greatest number were from the northern state of Coahuila, where the "drug wars" between the authorities and drug traffickers and between different drug gangs have been especially intense.

Mexican government and university researchers are warning about threats posed to the survival of 195 plant and animal species in the northern border state of Chihuahua. Studies by the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) have identified a broad gamut of species at risk, including birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians, as well as scores of cactus and other plant varieties.

Earlier this month, the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence held a hearing on the supposed Western Hemisphere operations of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia and political party which is on the State Department's list of "Foreign Terrorist Organizations." Those testifying included Roger F. Noriega, a senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, and Douglas Farah, a senior fellow of the International Assessment and Strategy Center. Fears of Hezbollah collaboration with Mexican drug cartels were raised by a 2010 internal memo from the Tucson Police Department, leaked by the hacker group LulzSec, which raided a trove of documents from the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The memo apparently warns that Hezbollah has established operations and a large arms stockpile in Mexico.