Key 'Milestones' in Mexico's Drug War Reuters
go to original October 10, 2012

For Mexican President Felipe Calderon, the fall of Herbito Lazcano is part of a larger strategy to injure drug cartels' operations by targeting their leaders. Judy Woodruff talks to Reuters News Agency's Simon Gardner for more on how this success plays into the larger goals for curbing drug-related violence in Mexico. (PBSNewsHour)

Below are some milestones since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and declared war on powerful drug cartels. About 60,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since then.

2008

Sept 15 - Suspected members of the Zetas drug gang tossed grenades into a crowd celebrating Mexico's independence day in the western city of Morelia, killing eight people and wounding more than 100.

2010

Jan 31 - Suspected cartel assailants killed 13 high school students and two adults at a party in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas.

March 13 - Hitmen killed three people linked to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez in March, provoking "outrage" from U.S. President Barack Obama.

June 28 - Suspected cartel gunmen shot and killed a popular gubernatorial candidate in the northern state of Tamaulipas in the worst cartel attack on a politician to date. Rodolfo Torre, 46, and four aides from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, were ambushed on their way to a campaign event for the July 4 state election.

July 18 - Gunmen burst into a birthday party in the northern city of Torreon, using automatic weapons to kill 17 party-goers and wound 18 others. Mexican authorities said later those responsible were incarcerated cartel hitmen let out of jail by corrupt officials. The killers allegedly borrowed weapons and vehicles from prison guards and later returned to their cells.

July 24 - Police unearthed 51 bodies in a grave outside Mexico's business capital, Monterrey, in northern Mexico over several days. Some corpses were burned beyond recognition.

Aug 25 - Marines found the bodies of 58 men and 14 women at a ranch near the Gulf of Mexico in Tamaulipas state, 90 miles (150 km) from the Texas border, after a firefight with drug hitmen in which three gunmen and a marine died.

2011

April - Officials unearthed the first of what turned out to be more than 450 bodies buried in mass graves in the northern states of Durango and Tamaulipas.

Aug 25 - Masked gunmen torch a casino in Monterrey, killing 52 people, most of them women. The attack takes less than three minutes.

Sept 20 - Thirty-five bodies are found abandoned in two trucks on an underpass in the eastern Gulf city of Veracruz, which had been largely untouched by the violence.

Oct 6 - Mexican security forces find 32 bodies at several locations around Veracruz, just two days after the government unveiled a plan to bolster security in Veracruz state.

Nov 24 - More than 20 bodies are found in cars in Mexico's second city, Guadalajara, a day after the burned bodies of 16 people are found in the home state of the country's powerful drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

2012

Feb 19 - A fight between rival gangs at a prison just outside Monterrey in northern Mexico leaves 44 dead.

May 4 - The bodies of nine people were found hanging from a bridge and 14 others found dismembered in the city of Nuevo Laredo, just across the U.S. border from Laredo in Texas.

May 13 - Suspected drug gang hitmen dumped 49 mutilated bodies, stuffed in bags, on a highway outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey.

Aug 14 - Armed men storm a bar in Monterrey, killing eight men in a hail of bullets, in an apparent dispute over drug dealing.

Aug 24 - Mexican police shoot and wound two U.S. Embassy employees, whom sources later identify as CIA operatives, just south of Mexico City.

Sept 4 - Mexico captures a leader of the country's Gulf Cartel, Mario Cardenas, alias "Fatso."

Oct 4 - The son of the former chairman of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party is found dead.

Oct 9 - Marines say they have killed the leader of the brutal Zetas drug gang, Heriberto Lazcano, alias "The Executioner," in a shootout.

Reporting by Mexico City bureau; Editing by Doina Chiacu

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