Criminal insurgents mutilate kill Mexican soldiers

Times:

The discovery of a dozen decapitated bodies scattered across a city in Mexico has become the latest symbol of the terrifying price this country is paying for drug consumption in America.

Nine of the corpses were found on a busy street in Chilpancingo, an hour's drive from the tourist resort of Acapulco, yards from where the Governor of Guerrero state was later to participate in a religious procession.

A bag containing their heads, some gagged with tape, was found nearby, with a sign declaring: “For every one of mine you kill, I will kill ten.” Three more decapitated bodies were found later in a village outside the city.

Eight of the victims, some of whose bodies showed evidence of torture, were identified as soldiers from a local army base. “They are trying to scare the military,” the Defence Ministry said. Mexican security forces have suffered scores of deaths in the two years since President Calderón deployed up to 40,000 troops in a domestic war against drugs.

The number of people killed in Mexico through violence related to organised crime has doubled this year to 5,300 — more than the entire US death toll from the Iraq war — as cartels battle against each other for control of a $15 billion (£10 billion) annual drugs trade and ruthlessly murder those who fail to pay or are accused of betrayal.

The gruesome tactic of beheading is used to spread fear among the security forces and their informants. Two headless corpses were found on the same boulevard in Chilpancingo on December 7 with a note reading: “Soldiers who are supposedly fighting crime, and they turn out to be kidnappers. This is going to happen to you.”

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This is definitely terrorism in hopes of intimidation of law enforcement. It appears pretty desperate, and indicates a need for better operational security by the military. I suspect it will lead to troops being less likely to ignore the insurgents and more likely to kill or capture them.