On Sept. 3 Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez, governor of the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, announced that soon after Sept. 7 the state government would release seven women who had been jailed under Article 156, which establishes a 25-35 year prison sentence for "homicide in the case of close relatives." Six of the women, campesinas from Dolores Hidalgo and San Miguel de Allende municipalities, said they lost their babies in involuntary miscarriages; all but one have spent at least three years in prison. Gov. Oliva, of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), said he thought there was a seventh prisoner who would be released, but he didn't know her name.

In a report issued Sept. 3, the US State Department determined that Mexico can receive $36 million in backed-up drug war aid under the Merida Initiative—but that $26 million, or 15% of an upcoming $175 million allocation, should be withheld for failure to meet human rights standards. The report especially cited the failure to try soldiers accused of abuses in civilian courts. It is the first time the State Department has called for withholding 15%, as permitted by the Merida Initiative's founding legislation, although the Department's backlog in approving previously allocated funds under the $1.3 billion program is responsible for the delay in releasing the $36 million. The Mexican government, in a statement, called the State Department findings an affront to its sovereignty: "The Merida Initiative is based on shared responsibility, mutual trust and respect for each country's jurisdiction."

Violence continues to escalate in the conflicted northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. On Sept. 3, at least 25 were killed as soldiers stormed a training camp allegedly set up by Los Zetas in Ciudad Mier. It is still unclear if there were soldiers among the dead. That same day, another five presumed Zetas were killed in a highway shoot-out with soldiers in neighboring Nuevo León state. (AlJazeera, AP, Sept. 3) On Aug. 28, three grenade attacks on military and police checkpoints in the cities of Reynosa and Tampico left a total of 25 wounded—three gravely, including two members of the Tampico police force. The attacks in Reynosa prompted the closure of the Hidalgo Bridge that links the border town with McAllen, Tex. A grenade attack was also reported in Monterrey, capital of Nuevo León. (Crónica de Hoy, Aug. 30; La Jornada, Aug. 29)

Two cars exploded Aug. 27 in Ciudad Victoria, capital of Mexico's conflicted Tamaulipas state—one in front of the local office of the Televisa TV network, which was being guarded by a congingent of soldiers; the other in front of a municipal police station. No casualties were reported, but the blast at Televisa's Canal 26 knocked out the signal for several hours. The blasts come as authorities are investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants in Tamaulipas this week.

On Aug. 24, Mexico's Navy found 72 bodies on a ranch located in the municipality of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, some 150 kilometers from the US border. The discovery was made after Navy personnel conducting operations in the vicinity repelled an attack by presumed narco-gunmen, in which one marine and three assailants were killed. After the gunfight, an 18-year-old man, Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla of Ecuador, staggered to the Navy's highway checkpoint requesting medical attention, having suffered a bullet wound to his face. Lala proved to be the sole survivor of the massacre at the nearby ranch, where the bodies were subsequently found.

The decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge Aug. 22 in the south-central city of Cuernavaca, Morelos. The Beltran Leyva Cartel claimed responsibility for the killings in a message left with the bodies. The beheaded and mutilated bodies were hung by their feet from the Tabachines bridge in the south of the city, near an on-ramp to the Mexico City-Acapulco highway. The message threatened: "This is what will happen to all those who support the traitor Edgar Valdéz Villarreal"—a reference to the former high-level Beltran Leyva operative code-named "la Barbie" who has broken with the cartel and is now the subject of a massive manhunt by Mexican federal police. On Aug. 10 a condo complex in Mexico City's posh Bosques de las Lomas district was besieged by a massive federal police contingent backed up helicopters on an apparently erroneous tip that "La Barbie" was there. In an incident that failed to make headlines outside Cuernavaca, the day before the bodies were found the home of a purported Valdéz Villarreal supporter in the city was torched by unknown assailants. A note left by the "Pacifico Sur Cartel" threatened to target more properties. (AP, La Jornada, Aug. 22; Diario de Morelos, Aug. 21; Poder360, Aug. 10)

Pablo López Alavés, a Zapotec leader of the Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca "Ricardo Flores Magón" (CIPO-RFM), was abducted Aug. 15 by a group of some 20 masked and black-clad men armed with rifles who stopped his car outside his pueblo of San Isidro Aloapam when he was going to gather wood with his wife, two daughters and five-year-old son. The gunmen broke his car window before forcing him from his vehicle and transferring him to their own unmarked truck. The family members returned to the pueblo and alerted his CIPO-RFM comrades, who in turn alerted the authorities and began a search. It was initially assumed he was kidnapped by paramilitaries in league with local talamontes, or illegal timber exploiters, whose operations CIPO-RFM has long opposed. But the following day authorities revealed he is being held at the state prison at Etla, apparently on assault charges. In 2000, López Alavés had faced charges of "attacking the means of communication" related to roadblocks protesting the talamontes, but was acquitted. CIPO-RFM calls the current charges politically motivated and is demanding his release. (CIPO-RFM communique, Aug. 18; CIPO-RFM communique, Aug. 17)

Six city police officers were arrested Aug. 20 in connection with the killing of a mayor in a suburb of Monterrey, Mexico. The suspects included the officer who guarded the house where Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos was seized on Aug. 15. The officer was supposedly abducted with the mayor, but later freed unharmed. The body of the 38-year-old mayor was found bound, gagged and blindfolded three days later on a road outside town. The officers confessed to involvement in the Cavazos' killing, said Nuevo León state Prosecutor General Alejandro Garza y Garza, who added that other suspects are still being sought.