Mexico's Secretary of Defense: 158 narco gunmen killed by troops in first 90 days of Peña Nieto administration

Guadalajara -
Mexico's Secretary of Defense (SEDENA) has reported that during the first 90 days of the PRI administration of president Enrique Peña Nieto, federal troops killed 158 sicarios while repelling drug cartel and organized crime attacks.

A sicario is a gunman or hired executioner, often in the service of one of this country's 60-80 cartels.

The majority of the dead were killed during military operations in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Coahuila, Zacatecas and Guerrero.

The Secretary reported that from Dec. 1, 2012 through Feb. 28, 2013, narco attacks were launched against troops in 15 of Mexico's 32 jurisdictions. Other states which saw assaults against army and marine units included Jalisco, Chihuahua, Edomex (State of Mexico), Sinaloa, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Durango, Sonora and Morelos.

Despite raging narco violence in Quintana Roo state, no attacks against Mexican troops were reported there. Tlaxcala and Yucatán likewise were free of direct challenges to federal authority.

According to official SEDENA statistics, between 2007 and 2012, during the previous administration of president Felipe Calderón, the army killed 2,959 cartel or organized crime operatives, and captured or decommissioned another 2,560.

Last month was the worst so far for the Peña Nieto administration. An average of 35 people died every day in drug war and organized crime violence, including 40 law enforcement personnel and soldiers. Mexico's March drug war tally was 1,025 dead, with Jalisco state in fourth place nationwide.

Both the present and previous governments contend the majority of drug war victims since 2006 - 60 or 70 thousand, depending on the source - were criminals killed by other criminals during an ongoing struggle for domination of narcotics trafficking and collateral crime, called "control of the plaza." There is strong empirical evidence for that proposition in Cancún and along Mexico's Riviera Maya coast, as well as in Acapulco and throughout Guerrero state.

Feb. 1 - Human Rights Watch's latest condemnation of Mexican drug war reveals how little it understands conflict

Jan. 2 - Mexican narco violence stats after first month of new PRI administration not encouraging: 982 executions, 32 a day

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