Mexico drug hitmen terrorize towns on U.S. border

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62O5JZ20100325

In the latest flare-up of border drug violence, masked, heavily-armed men are torching homes, firing on shops and businesses and have killed at least three local politicians in a cluster of towns near the deadly drug war city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. Residents in the cotton and alfalfa-growing town of El Porvenir say dozens of people have been killed this year. President Felipe Calderon has staked his political future on reining in the drug killings that worry investors, tourists and Washington. He has sent 8,000 soldiers and federal police to the Ciudad Juarez area alone to try to defeat the cartels.
The U.S. government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to train Mexican police and provide helicopters and drug-spotting equipment, but a poll this week in Milenio newspaper showed a majority of Mexicans believe the cartels, not the army, are winning the drug war.