Violence erupts in Mexico's drugs heartland

By Mica Rosenberg

CULIACAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Violence has exploded in Mexico's drug smuggling heartland in a three-way battle between rival gangs and security forces, the biggest challenge yet to President Felipe Calderon's war against the cartels.

About 300 people have died in drug murders so far this year in Sinaloa, an arid western state that serves as the home turf of one of Mexico's main drug gangs and where traffickers worship a bandit as their own patron saint.

The killing spilled over to Mexico City this month when assassins hired by Sinaloan smugglers shot dead one of Mexico's top federal policemen at his home, in a direct challenge to the government.

Calderon has staked his reputation on weakening the cartels, and responded to the murder by sending an extra 2,700 soldiers to Sinaloa to try to tame the state.

But Sinaloa's hitmen, known for their swagger, were undaunted. A gang threw grenades at a police station and machine-gunned three houses just hours after the troop deployment, killing one person in the town of Guamuchil.

Synonymous for many Mexicans with drugs and "narcocorrido" folk ballads that glamorize the lives of leading traffickers, Sinaloa had a tradition of growing marijuana and opium long before U.S. illegal drug demand took off in the 1960s.

The cartel now mostly smuggles methamphetamines and South American cocaine up the Pacific coast.

"There has always been violence here because this is where drug trafficking was born ... but before it was under control," said 73-year-old Culiacan native Juan Murray.

Residents of state capital Culiacan say they now rarely go out at night because of the violence which they fear will worsen after rival drug hitmen killed the son of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man.

In a military-style attack, armed men from a rival faction gunned Edgar Guzman down at a strip mall in central Culiacan, on May 8, leaving 500 bullet casings strewn on the ground. Some 20 cars nearby were damaged in the withering gunfire.

The murder is widely attributed to the Beltran Leyva family, former allies in the cartel who have recently split with Guzman. The city expects bloody recriminations.

"The gangs are fighting each other and now with the army here the only thing we can do is hide in our houses," said Yira Sanchez, 26, holding her one-year-old daughter.

BRUTAL FIGHT

Beyond its own internal strife, the Sinaloa gang is locked in a nationwide turf war with the Gulf cartel and both sides abduct, torture and murder their rivals, sometimes beheading them.

While the Sinaloans have managed to stage attacks in Gulf territory just south of Texas, outsiders rarely penetrate Sinaloa.