Browsing: Zetas

The two most important criminal organizations in Mexico are engaged in all-out war, and the most spectacular battles are being fought for the cameras as the combatants pursue a strategy of intimidation and propaganda by dumping ever greater numbers of headless bodies in public view, the victims most likely innocent.

Authorities struggled Monday to identify 49 bodies without heads, hands or feet to gain clues into the latest in a series of massacres from an escalating war between Mexico’s two dominant drug cartels, with increasing evidence that innocents are being pulled into the bloodbath along with gang rivals.

In the grotesque wars that pit Mexican armed forces and drug cartels against each other and civilians who get in their way, the Zetas cartel plays a fearsome role.