Mexican drug intelligence chief trapped, slain

MEXICO CITY – The newly appointed head of a drug intelligence unit in the attorney general’s office was shot and killed Monday in a street ambush here that dealt a new blow to President Felipe Calderon’s campaign against the nation’s drug traffickers.

Officials said several assailants waited for Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix, director of the attorney general’s “Information Against Delinquency” unit, trapping his SUV on a narrow street. Such assassinations have become common in many border and port cities of Mexico but are rare in the capital.

Lugo Felix had been appointed in April to head a unit specializing in analyzing data about the activities of the nation’s drug cartels, officials said. He was shot as he drove his car during rush hour just outside an office of the attorney general in the southern Coyoacan district, a neighborhood better known as a center of the city’s arts community.

The method of the assault “leads us to presume it was a planned execution,” Victor Corzo, an official with the attorney general’s office, told reporters. “It could be related to drug traffickers because he was someone who possessed information.” The slain official was a veteran anti-crime “strategist,” Corzo added.

The killing Monday came as apparent drug-related violence continued across the country.

Over the weekend, two journalists for the Azteca television network were reported missing and assumed kidnapped in the northern city of Monterrey. An army captain was kidnapped and slain in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, on the Pacific Coast. Both regions have seen increasing violence as drug cartels fight each other for lucrative trade routes to the United States, while also battling the police and the army.

He was driving an SUV when a red Pontiac blocked his path, officials said. Assailants emerged from the car and opened fire, striking him three times in the head. The assailants fled, abandoning the car, which turned out to be stolen, officials said.

Mexico City newspaper El Universal said more than 1,000 people have been killed by organized crime groups this year. The newspaper Reforma counted 758 killed as of May 1. The Mexican government does not release an official tally.