NPR, 10/11/2010
Eleven mayors in Mexico have been killed since January, caught up in the violent drug war.
As the Mexican government pushes forward with its offensive against the drug cartels, criminal groups have slaughtered their rivals, killed police and now increasingly are targeting public officials — particularly mayors. The places where politicians have been murdered in Mexico this year are the same places where drug violence has been raging.
The first assassinations in February occurred in the northern states of Chihuahua and Durango. Then the killings shifted south to Guerrero, Oaxaca and Michoacan.
Lately, the violence has moved to the volatile northeast. Over the last two months, four mayors have been gunned down in municipalities surrounding the northern industrial city of Monterrey.
