Drug Trafficking

Gunmen ambush a military patrol pursuing drug traffickers. The soldiers retaliate, rounding up dozens of townspeople. Four girls held for 20 hours later tell prosecutors that soldiers repeatedly raped and abused them. The case, from exactly two years ago in the state of Michoacan, is one of 17 allegations of serious human rights abuse by the Mexican army, including torture and murder, detailed in a major report released Wednesday by U.S.

The reputed head of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against competitors and law enforcement north of the border, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said. Such a move by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, would mark a turn from the cartel's previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations in the U.S.

Army Capt. Claudio Montane wants one thing clear from the start: This place is not a narco-museum. The point is not to glorify drug traffickers. "Its purpose is to show Mexico and the world the efforts and the good results that we have achieved," Montane said, opening a tour of a military collection officially called the Museum of Drugs.

Mexican security forces swept into President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan on Tuesday and arrested a total of 27 mayors and other government officials, the largest operation to target politicians in Mexico's bloody drug war. The officials, including 10 mayors, are being investigated for alleged ties to drug traffickers and other organized crime syndicates that in effect control large sections of Michoacan, the federal attorney general's office said. Michoacan Gov.

Twice before, the anti-drug agents had gotten a tip about a load of cocaine at the hulking industrial park on this dreary stretch of highway half an hour outside Guatemala City. Twice before, a U.S. official said, they had found nothing. On their third visit, they found a firing squad. Gunmen unleashed a furious barrage of bullets and at least one grenade, in some cases finishing the job point-blank.

A 30-year-old Mexican national was arrested while trying to smuggle 24 pounds of marijuana ashore on a surfboard, the U.S. Border Patrol said. The suspect was spotted Sunday morning paddling north about 200 yards off Imperial Beach, near the Mexican border. When agents ordered the surfer to come ashore, he threw a blue duffel bag into the water, the Border Patrol said. Agents went into the water to make the arrest.

In an effort to plug a hole in U.S.-Mexico drug enforcement, the U.S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced an agreement Thursday that will give designated immigration agents expanded powers to pursue drug investigations. A key goal is to end the long-standing turf battles between the Justice Department's Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement that many critics believe have hampered investigations.

Colombia's coca crop shrank by nearly 20% last year while cultivation rose for a third straight year in Peru and Bolivia, the world's two other coca-producing nations, the United Nations said Friday. The U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said the 18% reduction in Colombia, the world's top cocaine producer, from 2007 was owed in part to record manual eradication of 371 square miles of the bush, the leaves of which are used to produce cocaine.

A government audit of U.S. efforts to stop arms trafficking to Mexico was criticized Friday by a Republican lawmaker who said its conclusion that smuggled weapons from America were fueling the rise of violent Mexican drug cartels was based on incomplete data. The report, released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, said that the United States lacked a coordinated strategy to stem the flow of smuggled weapons.

In the baddest precinct of Mexico's most violent city, Jose Manuel Resendiz is the law. The army officer packs two pistols and a semiautomatic rifle as he patrols the Delicias district of Ciudad Juarez, the bullet-scarred border city that is the emblem of Mexico's drug-war mayhem.