Mexican drug war 'alarming' U.S. officials

By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent

MEXICO CITY – Virtually every day now there are disturbing headlines here about the assassination of yet another Mexican official, gangland-style shootouts in broad daylight, the gruesome discoveries of kidnapped and tortured murder victims – many of them beheaded – and police chiefs quitting their jobs and fleeing the country in terror.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon vowed a year and a half ago to confront the drug cartels and take back vast areas of the country that these powerful criminals have controlled for years, more than 4,000 people have been killed. The murder victims include some 500 police officers, soldiers, mayors and other officials.

As the government pushes into cartel territory, the traffickers fight back while at the same time killing each other in internal battles over the remaining turf and smuggling routes – most of this occurring just south of the U.S. border.

VIDEO: Mexico's drug war crosses the border

Borrowing a page from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's playbook for fighting traffickers and guerrillas, Calderon has deployed 25,000 army troops and federal police forces around Mexico. Their primary mission is to regain control, establish peace, rebuild judicial institutions and try to reign in some of the endemic corruption infecting local police departments. The jury is still out on whether any of that has been accomplished yet. But the current Mexican government is certainly trying and is paying a horrible price in human lives. Even Mexico's National Police Chief Edgar Millan was murdered in a hail of bullets inside the protective walls of a Mexico City home. "We have no choice, there is no alternative here," Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said, defending the government's crackdown. "If we want to build a sound democracy, a country with a rule of law with liberties, we have to do this and we will."...(read more)</pstyle="clear:both"></pstyle="clear:both"></pstyle="clear:both"></pstyle="clear:both"></pstyle="clear:both"></pstyle="clear:both"></pstyle="clear:both">