On Dec. 22, gunmen burst into the home of the family of Mexican marine Melquisedet Angulo, who had been killed last week in the Cuernavaca gun-battle that also claimed the life of kingpin Arturo Beltrán Leyva, spraying it with bullets and killing his mother, brother, sister and aunt. Another sister was gravely wounded. The attack came hours after Angulo was honored as a national hero in a naval ceremony at his hometown of Paraíso in southern Tabasco state.

The family home in Paraíso was littered with more than two dozen bullet casings from AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles. Military authorities did not say if measures are being taken to protect Angulo's wife and two young children, who were apparently not home at the time of the raid.

President Felipe Calderón called the attack "a cowardly act" and vowed to press forward in his military crackdown on the drug cartels, which now involve more than 45,000 troops. "We will not be intimidated by criminals without scruples like those who committed this barbarity," he said. "Those who act like this deserve the unanimous repudiation of society and they must pay for their crime." (El Universal, AP, Dec. 22)

That same day, gunmen killed Antonio Ibarra, tourism secretary of Sinaloa state, along with his driver when their car was intercepted in Culiacán—the state capital and hometown of Arturo Beltran Leyva. The kingpin had been buried in the city's cemetery two days earlier. (AP, Dec. 22)

See our last posts on Mexico's narco wars.

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