Drug War | featured news

President Barack Obama will face an unprecedented revolt by Latin American countries against the U.S.-led drug war during his second term and he also may struggle to pass new trade deals as the region once known as "America's backyard" flexes its muscles like never before.

Two decapitated bodies were found at the entrance to one of Mexico's most luxurious shopping malls on Wednesday and prosecutors announced that more than 47,000 people have been killed in drug violence in the five years since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown against drug cartels.

The number of homicides in Mexico rose by nearly a quarter in 2010 as the drug war intensified across the country.

Mexican cartels are taking advantage of U.S. gun laws to buy thousands of weapons that are being used in an escalating drug war that has claimed more than 31,000 lives since late 2006, experts and law enforcement officials tell NBC News.

Top Mexican drug lord Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas died in a shootout with security forces on Friday in the border city of Matamoros across from Brownsville, Texas, Mexico's navy said.

The biggest newspaper in Mexico s most violent city will restrict drug war coverage after the killing of its second journalist in less than two years, just as international press representatives will urge the government to make security for journalists a national priority.

U.S. Border Patrol agents fired gunshots into Mexico over the weekend after being attacked during a marijuana seizure in Mission, Texas, the agency told CNN on Monday.

Federal police on Monday captured a long-sought, alleged Texas-born gang kingpin who faces drug trafficking charges in the U.S. and has been blamed for a vicious turf war that has included bodies hung from bridges and shootouts in central Mexico.

About 3,200 Mexican federal police have been fired for failing to do their work or being linked to corruption, an official says.

A major Mexican television network says a car has exploded in front of its offices in a northern state where officials are investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants.