Hitmen Kill Second Mexican Mayor in Two Weeks

(Aug. 30) -- The Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, known for drug-related violence, saw more bloodshed when the mayor of Hidalgo was shot dead by suspected cartel hitmen.

The killing of Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, 46, on Sunday comes just a few days after a wave of car bombs were set off in the state capital and less than a week after the bullet-ridden corpses of 72 migrants were found at a ranch near the U.S. border. Experts suspect that the Zetas -- a bloodthirsty drug gang formed by former Mexican army commandos, and dubbed the most "sophisticated and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico" by the U.S. government -- are behind many of the crimes.

Leal was driving through his rural municipality at 4:30 p.m. Sunday when gunmen in an SUV opened fire on his vehicle, state prosecutors said, according to the Notimex news agency. Leal's 10-year-old daughter, Maria Esther, was wounded in the attack and is now receiving treatment at a nearby hospital. Her injuries aren't thought to be life threatening.

''This cowardly crime, and the reprehensible violent acts that occurred recently in this state, strengthen the commitment of the Mexican government to continue fighting the criminal gangs that seek to intimidate the families of Tamaulipas,'' President Felipe Calderon's office said in a statement, cited by The Associated Press.

It's still not clear why Leal, a member of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was slain. But this isn't the first time that gangsters have targeted government figures in Hidalgo and surrounding areas. Gunmen tossed grenades at the town hall earlier this year, noted Reuters, and Hidalgo's former mayor, also a PRI member, escaped an assassination attempt this month.

And just two weeks ago, another mayor (a member of Calderon's ruling conservative party) from the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon was kidnapped and murdered by a drug gang. Edelmiro Cavazos' body was found blindfolded and bound, and dumped on a rural road outside his town of Santiago.

The border state of Tamaulipas has become one of the bloodiest combat zones as rivals from the Gulf cartel and its one-time allies, the Zetas, battle over valuable drug smuggling routes into the U.S. On Tuesday, investigators found the bodies of 72 murdered migrants at a ranch near San Fernando. The sole survivor of that mass execution told authorities that the Zetas opened fire on the illegal immigrants -- who were trying to reach the U.S. -- after they refused to work as assassins, according to MSNBC, which cited reports in the Mexican media.

If confirmed as a cartel killing, the Tamaulipas massacre would rank as perhaps the most heinous act of Mexico's already bloody drug war, which has claimed more than 28,000 lives over the past four years.

There are now signs that the Zetas are targeting those investigating or reporting on the massacre. Roberto Suarez, the state prosecutor heading the investigation into the mass murder, and a local police officer he was traveling with, have been missing since Wednesday and are presumed to have been kidnapped by the cartel. On Friday, two separate car bombs went off outside a police building and TV station in the state capital of Ciudad Victoria.

The following day a bomb exploded just three blocks away from a mass for the murdered migrants. Three people were injured in the attack in the city of Reynosa, according to the state-run Notimex agency.

"It's clear that the Zetas are behind those explosions," Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City, told Agence France-Presse. "They didn't expect anyone to survive [the massacre] and now they are reacting with these attacks by challenging the Mexican state."