The Mexican daily El Norte reports June 15 that drug gangs in army-occupied Nuevo Laredo swapped insults this week with rival gangs and federal authorities over the police VHF channel. Hundreds of soldiers and federal police agents took over the town and suspended the local police force June 12 to curb a drug war between the local Gulf Cartel and foes from the state of Sinaloa. "We're going to kick shit out of all the stupid feds and the Sinaloans," said a voice on the radio reported to be that of a member of the Zetas, a band of renegade elite army troops turned Gulf cartel enforcers. Other voices, reportedly those of Sinaloan enforcers, dubbed the Zetas "sons of whores" and called federal agents "idiots." The foul-mouthed banter prompted one federal agent to chide the cartels for fighting among themselves "like kids." They snapped back with a torrent of abuse and told him to "get back to work," according to the report.

Drug violence in Mexico has soared this year, with more than 500 murders, most of them in cities and towns on the U.S. border and in Sinaloa, the home state of Mexico's most wanted man, drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. (Reuters, June 15)

See our last post on the crisis in northern Mexico.