15 Dead in Tijuana Shootout

A gunfight between Tijuana drug cartel rivals left 15 dead and eight wounded near the US border today, Reuters reports. The worst violence in Mexico's 3-year drug war, it filled a city road with bodies and took the lives of two top hit men from the Arellano Felix cartel. "Today shows we are facing a terrible war never seen before on the (U.S.-Mexico) border," said Baja California Attorney General Rommel Moreno.

Federal police and thousands of troops are patrolling the city to prevent further violence and guard the wounded. The officers themselves are now likely targets, Tijuana's police chief says. Drug murders claimed 2,500 lives in Mexico last year, and 900 already in 2008. “Another shootout,” said one worker at the site of today's killings. “There are just too many.” (More Mexico stories.)