Red on red fighting in Mexico as Zetas and Gulf Cartel go to war

CNN:

There are dozens of murders recorded in Mexico each month, but it was a single one that set off a succession of skirmishes that has turned the northeastern state of Tamaulipas into a battle zone.

For weeks, the border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and surrounding towns have been the scene of a spike in violence and fear that have included high-caliber shootouts in broad daylight.

The killing of one cartel member by another cartel sparked the surge in violence, U.S. authorities said, a reminder of how the micro and the macro are linked in drug trade and the communities where it operates.

After an increase in violence earlier this month, Tamaulipas has quieted down a bit. But the violence may have just shifted west to the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon, where two college students were killed after getting caught in a skirmish between authorities and traffickers.

The violence is the result of a new rivalry between former partners, the Gulf cartel and a group known as Los Zetas, said Will Glaspy, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's McAllen, Texas, office.

Until spring 2008, the Zetas were part of the Gulf cartel, a group of Mexican special forces defectors who worked as the cartel's ruthless enforcement arm.

"The role of the Zetas evolved from hired guns to their own independent criminal organization," Glaspy said, adding that tensions between the two groups increased in the past six months.

The tipping point was the unannounced visit of a Zeta higher-up to Reynosa, where he was confronted and killed on orders from the Gulf cartel, Glaspy said.

Glaspy did not identify the victim, but others, including the global intelligence company Stratfor, say the man was Sergio Mendoza Pena, a top Zeta leader.

Mendoza Pena, described as the right-hand man of the Zetas' No. 2 leader, Miguel Trevino Morales, was killed after an altercation with one of the top Gulf cartel leaders, Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, according to Stratfor.

The Zetas gave the Gulf cartel an ultimatum to turn over the killers, but the deadline came and went, Stratfor technical analyst for Latin America Alex Posey said.

Since then, it's been a tit-for-tat battle that spilled into the streets of northeastern Mexico, Posey said.

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"Both sides are amassing numbers of personnel in preparation for an ongoing conflict," Posey said.

There is also evidence that each side is recruiting drug trafficking organizations from other parts of the country to take sides and join the battle, Posey said.

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The Zetas should have the upper hand in this battle, because they acted as the muscle for the Gulf Cartel. However the cartel has financial resources to buy muscle from other organizations and that is probably what they did. Giving each other the death penalty is probably a net benefit to Mexican authorities.