Nearly 7,000 Mexican soldiers and federal police arrived in Ciudad Juárez this week in a bid to restore order amid an escalating bloody turf war between rival drug cartels. Masked soldiers are patrolling the streets in long convoys of military vehicles and conducting traffic checkpoint. Another 1,500 soldiers are expected to join the 3,500 that rolled into the northern border city earlier this week. "They'll stay as long as necessary," said Juárez police spokesman Jaime Torres Valadez. Surveillance cameras will be installed throughout the city to help police stem executions and assassinations in the streets. (CNN, March 6)

An unexploded bomb forced the evacuation of the airport in in Mexico's violence-torn Ciudad Juárez Feb. 25, while a bomb threat cleared the border city's courthouse. Airport personnel and travelers returned to the airport three hours after the explosive device was found by police, an airport official said. No explosives were found at the courthouse. At a hotel three blocks from the courthouse, four federal government ministers were holding a security meeting about the unprecedented violence in the city. (AFP, Feb. 25)

After eight years in a maximum-security Mexican prison, convicted drug kingpin Miguel Caro Quintero AKA "Michael Jackson" was extradited to the US Feb. 25. With his brother Rafael Caro Quintero, the extradited kingpin is said to have led the Guadalajara Cartel, Mexico's top crime machine in the 1980s and forerunner of today's warring Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel. Rafael, arrested in Costa Rica in 1985, is serving time in Mexico for the 1985 killing of US Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. (AFP, El Universal, Feb. 25)

Federal, state, and local law enforcement in California, Minnesota, and Maryland arrested 50 people Feb. 25 who the US Justice Department claims are operatives of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and related criminal enterprises. Authorities also confiscated $59 million in drug money, 12,000 kilos of cocaine, 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.3 million Ecstasy pills and more than 160 weapons. The Justice Department said federal agents arrested more than 750 alleged cartel operatives in the last 21 months as a part of the same investigation, "Operation Xcellerator." Attorney General Eric Holder, making the announcement, said: "We can provide our communities the safety and the security that they deserve only by confronting these dangerous cartels head-on, without reservation. We can do that and we will do that. These cartels will be destroyed." (KDBC, El Paso, Phoenix Business Journal, Feb. 25)

On Feb. 16 some 150 people greeted the brothers Antonio and Héctor Cerezo Contreras as they left a medium security prison in Morelos state, close to Mexico City. The Cerezos were arrested in 2001 along with their brother Alejandro after three small bombs exploded at Mexico City banks. Many people believe the arrests were connected to reports that their parents, Francisco Cerezo Quiroz and Emilia Contreras, are leaders in the rebel Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The brothers were never charged in the bombing but convicted of weapons and explosives possession. Alejandro was released in February 2005 after a court overturned his conviction.

Some 500,000 Mexican bus and truck drivers and owners held a one-day strike on Feb. 16, slowing freight deliveries and forcing many passengers to find alternative transportation in 17 of the country's 32 entities (31 states and the Federal District). The strike was called by the Alliance of Multimodal Transport, recently formed by about 200 transport associations. The alliance is demanding that the federal government freeze diesel fuel prices at 6.31 pesos (about $0.43) a liter; the fuel is distributed by the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) oil company.

Gunmen in a car fired on the three-car motorcade of José Reyes Baeza Terrazas, governor of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, as it stopped at an intersection in the state capital, Chihuahua City, late Feb. 22. Baeza insisted he wasn't the target, saying the gunmen fired at guards who were trailing him at a distance of several meters. A bodyguard died in the shootout; two other bodyguards and an assailant were wounded. "There was never direct aggression against the governor," Baeza told reporters. He declined to suggest a possible motive. The Prosecutor General of Republic is investigating the incident. (LAT, Feb. 24; El Universal, Feb. 23)

The police chief in Mexico's violence-torn Ciudad Juárez quit Feb. 20 after several officers were slain this week and hand-painted posters left in prominent places in the city pledged an officer would be killed every 48 hours until he resigned. Roberto Orduña Cruz, the city's public safety secretary, said he didn't want to risk more lives. "Respect for the life that these brave officers risk every day on the streets for Juarez residents obliges me to offer my permanent resignation," Orduña said.