At least 10 people were shot dead by a group of masked men on motorbikes accompanied by two cars the early morning of Nov. 5 in several impoverished suburbs of Belém, the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Pará. Residents reported on the massacre by social media while it was in progress, warning people to stay indoors. Some of the killings may have been targeted, but in other cases the attackers apparently shot randomly at people on the streets. The incident came just hours after the Nov. 4 shooting death of Antônio Marco da Silva Figueiredo, a corporal in an elite military police unit, the Metropolitan Tactical Patrol (ROTAM). "There is a big probability that if there was not active police involvement" in the subsequent massacre, "then there were people who already passed through the police," Anna Lins, a lawyer from Pará Society for the Defense of Human Rights (SDDH), told a reporter. "It was summary execution."

Colombia's government Nov. 17 suspended peace talks with the FARC after the apparent capture of an army general by the guerillas. President‎ Juan Manuel Santos demanded the return of Brig Gen Ruben Dario Alzate Mora "safe and sound." The president told Reuters: "Tomorrow negotiators were to travel to another round of talks in Havana. I will tell them not to go and that the talks are suspended until these people are released." (BBC News, Nov. 17)

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos on Oct. 22 announced the capture of one of the country's top fugitive crime lords—Marcos de Jesús Figueroa AKA "Marquitos"—in the Brazilian jungle city of Boa Vista. The extraordinary operation was coordinated by police forces in both Colombia and Brazil. "Marquitos" was considered the reigning boss of the lucrative narco trade in Colombia's northern region of La Guajira, with access to both the Caribbean Sea and the porous Venezuelan border. He is held responsible for a long reign of terror by criminal gangs and their paramilitary allies in the region—personally culpable in at least 100 deaths, according to authorities. Santos took the apprehension of Marquitos as an opportunity to crow: "With this, we say to criminals that it makes no difference where you are, we are going to catch you." (El Tiempo, Oct. 23; El Espectador, El Tiempo, Oct. 22)

A group of 43 Mexican teachers' college students missing since the night of Sept. 26-27 were killed by gang members and their bodies were burned and disposed of in Cocula municipality in the southwestern state of Guerrero, federal attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam announced at a Nov. 7 press conference in Mexico City. Three members of the Guerreros Unidos ("United Warriors") criminal organization confessed to having participated in the execution of the students and the incineration of their bodies, according to Murillo Karam, who said the remains were so thoroughly burned that it might be difficult to extract DNA for identification. The Mexican government is planning to send the remains to technicians in Austria. The attorney general said he understood the skepticism of the students' parents about his office's findings, more than a month after the events: "It's natural…and it doesn't surprise me."

In an operation dubbed "Saturn II," a unit of the new Honduran National Police elite anti-narco force, the Intelligence Troop and Special Security Response Groups (TIGRES), joined with DEA agents Oct. 2 to raid a house in the pueblo of El Porvenir Florida, near Copán on the Guatemalan border—scoring the arrest of one the country's reigning kingpins, José Inocente Valle Valle. The Valle Valle family is said to control the greatest share of cocaine passing through Honduras. Three other brothers of José Inocente remain at large, and face trafficking charges in the United States. Troops from the Guatemalan National Civil Police also participated in the raid. Among the items recovered in the house were 12 pieces of solid gold each impressed with the inscription "Sinaloa"—presumably indicating commercial ties between the Valle Valle family and Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel. (Tiempo, Honduras, Oct. 2)

Protests against Mexican local governments and federal president Enrique Peña Nieto showed no signs of letting up the week of Oct. 20, nearly one month after the Sept. 26-27 killing of six people and the abduction of 43 teachers' college students in Iguala in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Students held a two-day national strike on Oct. 22-23 to demand the return of the missing students, who were all from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College in the Guerrero town of Ayotzinapa. Tens of thousands of students and teachers marched in a total of 18 Mexican states on the first day of the strike. The protest in Mexico City was reportedly one of the capital's largest demonstrations in recent years. The Federal District (DF, Mexico City) police estimated the crowd at 50,000, while the Los Angeles Times reported that at one point the march stretched along the broad Paseo de la Reforma from the Angel of Independence to the central Zócalo, a distance of more than four kilometers.

On Oct. 3, authorities invaded the pueblo of El Reposo, in Campamento municipality of Colombia's Antioquia department, arresting three locals—including a minor and the president of the village Communal Action Junta—in connection with a supposed cocaine laboratory discovered nearby. But El Reposo's residents quickly turned the tables, rising up with their machetes, demanding that the three be liberated—and finally detaining 14 soldiers and six agents from the Fiscalía Technical Corps. The soliders and agents were held for several hours in the village schoolhouse. The government of Antioquia and Colombia's human rights ombudsman, the Defensoría del Pueblo, quickly mobilized a team to El Reposo to negotiate the release of the troops and agents. However, demands for the freedom of the three arrested locals remain outstanding, and the situation is still tense. (Semana, Bogotá, Oct. 3; Colombia Reports, La W Radio, BLU Radio,RCN, El Espectador, Bogotá, Oct. 3)

Two attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killed at least 30 troops Oct. 24. At least 27 people died in the first attack, a car-bomb blast at a checkpoint in the al-Kharouba area northwest of al-Arish, near the border with the Gaza Strip. Hours later, a gun-battle then broke out in al-Arish town, leaving another three dead. (Reuters, BBC News, Oct. 24) One day earlier, attackers inside Egypt fired an anti-tank missile and automatic rifles at a military vehicle in Israel, wounding two soldiers. The Israeli military has asked residents in the area to remain in their homes while an investigation is underway, and suggested the skirmish came as troops foiled a "violent drug smuggling attempt." (Al Jazeera, Oct. 23)