Mexico bomb seen too amateur for cartel campaign

By Catherine Bremer

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A botched bomb attack aimed at a Mexico City security chief looks more like a vendetta by small-time drug peddlers than the start of a wider bombing campaign by big cartels, experts say.

Friday's intended attack, which backfired when the device went off early and killed the man carrying it, rocked a busy area of the capital. It raised fears that Mexico's powerful drug gangs had escalated their fight with the government.

But details released by police and security camera footage of the bungled operation suggest the bomber was a common criminal on the fringes of the capital's underworld and not one of the cartels' many professional hitmen.

Security experts say the use of explosives nevertheless sets a worrying precedent in a country where more than 2,500 people were killed last year as gangs such as the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels fought each other and security forces.

"It's unclear who was behind this. It could be a personal vendetta of some sort, but are we seeing perhaps the tripwire toward the use of the IED (improvised explosive device) in these kinds of environments?" said Fred Burton, a former U.S. counter-terrorism agent at security consultant Stratfor.

Investigators are probing possible links to organized crime as they hunt for half a dozen suspected accomplices of Juan Manuel Meza, who was blown up by a homemade bomb police say he meant to plant under the car of a top security official.

Police say they do not know if he was working alone or for a criminal gang.

Experts question why a big cartel would hire an amateur bomb maker when its well-armed hitmen carry out dozens of murders each week and rarely get caught.