Mystery surrounds Tijuana drug shootings

Instead, speculation, rumor and scattered news leaks filled the information vacuum after yet another battle in Mexico's drug wars.

And there were only tentative answers to the larger questions that worry many here: Is this violence between drug dealers a sign that the Mexican government is winning the wars? Or is it just another symptom of a country slipping deeper into an abyss of lawlessness?

Official silence is common in Mexico, where thousands have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. But many analysts believe that Calderon's decision to send thousands of army troops to Baja California, Veracruz, Michoacan and other states to crack down on the drug trade is reaping a type of dividend.

The government's efforts have disrupted agreements between trafficking organizations and corrupt officials, setting off turf wars among weakened organizations, analysts and government officials say.

"We wouldn't see so much bloodshed if the Mexican government were more complicit with these [criminal] organizations and just letting them have their way," said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

At the same time, the Tijuana shootout was just one of several seen in border communities in recent years. And unless officials decide to reveal more about who was involved and what happened, the true meaning of the bloodshed is likely to remain a mystery.

On Sunday morning Tijuana residents awoke to a rogue's gallery of criminal names in their newspapers.

"According to reliable sources," reported, the shootout was between rivals within the Arellano Felix gang.

Or maybe not. The national daily El Universal reported that the so-called Sinaloa cartel was to blame.

Several newspapers reported that among the dead was "Crutches," a.k.a. Luis Alfonso Velarde, a reputed local drug lord with a handful of YouTubevideo tributes to his name.

Another, even bigger "cartel" operative nicknamed "Mr. Three Letters" might be dead too, along with "La Perra," reported El Sol de Tijuana. And they may all have been ambushed by another cartel leader known as "El Cholo."