Zetas, originally established as an enforcement wing of the narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel, but now a paramilitary militia in its own right

"Although they wore ski masks, everyone knew who they were with their machineguns and uniforms," said Gabriela. This brazen display of strength was carried out by the Zetas, originally established as an enforcement wing of the narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel, but now a paramilitary militia in its own right, highly trained in combat and probably the most powerful drug-trafficking organisation in the world.

The cartel was founded in the 1970s but emerged in its modern form in the mid-1980s, led by Juan García Abrego (now in a Colorado jail) and thereafter Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who founded the Zetas and who is now awaiting trial in Houston, Texas. The Zetas are now led by Heriberto Lazcano – "El Lazco" or "Z3" – wanted in both Mexico and the US. It is Lazcano and the Zetas who control the cartel's drug operations and exercise the savagery with which its power is enforced and its terrain expanded. Estimated by US intelligence to number about 4,000, its soldiers were recruited from the Mexican army's special forces units, some reportedly trained in the US, though this has never been proved. What has been proved time and time again is their deadly cogency. The cartel is the only one against which the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, has thrown his army's full might. So far, thanks to the Zetas, the cartel is winning.

After two years of Calderón's military offensive against the cartels, and 20 years since their "federation" fell apart and they began fighting one another, no one can predict an outcome, but one partial result is clear: the cartel and the Zetas have held their terrain and are broadening it, despite the high-profile arrests of key members of the group such as Jaime González Durán, alias "El Hummer". A spokesman for Calderón, Alejandra de Soto, told the Observer that "the army is proud of what it has achieved in Tamaulipas" – where the Zetas are based – "there is relative peace in the area. It has been brought under control".

The crucial point about the "relative peace" in areas held by the Zetas is that it is a peace whereby the cartel controls every facet of life, is uncontested by its rivals and presides over an omnipresent reign of terror.

It is also punctuated by firefights and the brutal murders of police commanders who do not co-operate. Last week more than 20 men were arrested for the murder of the police commander of García, near Monterrey. A retired army general, Juan Arturo Esparza, was ambushed with a fusillade of fire and killed, said a message cited in the Houston Chronicle, for "disappointing the letter Z". Most of those arrested were police officers. Meanwhile, hundreds of officers dutifully turned out last week for the funeral of the state police commander in Veracruz, Casto Acevedo, reportedly killed by the Zetas for refusing to co-operate with them. His torso and mutilated limbs were stacked on a mattress and his severed head left nearby.

Zeta territory is markedly different from the notoriously violent Ciudad Juárez, where the cartel pyramids have collapsed and criminal anarchy prevails. There, newspapers can report the nightly atrocities. In Zeta country, killing is less common and daily life appears normal – but it is governed by fear.

Moreover, the Zetas are expanding. Determined to control a corridor of their own through Central America to the cocaine production fields of Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, the Zetas have fought for and won control of most of the Gulf coast – as shown by recent massacres in Veracruz and Cancún, where they murdered an army general – and are fighting an all-out guerrilla war against the Sinaloa Cartel's cocaine farms in Guatemala. They are contesting a rival cartel, La Familia of Michoacán, for lucrative markets of Mexico City's endless suburbs. In a reported alliance with a cartel called the Beltrán-Leyva brothers, they are fighting for smuggling routes into Arizona.

Crucially, the Zetas hold their terrain absolutely and its location in north-eastern Mexico affords access to Houston, which the FBI, briefing the Observer last week, called "the hub city" for alliances with local gangs – the old "Texas Syndicate" and loose-knit "Tango Blast".

Of all Mexico's cartels, the Zetas are the most internationally connected, allied to their counterparts in the Italian syndicates, the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, with ambitions in the European and African markets.

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Mexican police were protecting the Zetas.

"La Barbie" a leader of the rival Sinaloa cartel, took out a full page advert in a Mexico City daily newspaper, to allege that Mexican police were protecting the Zetas.

For their part, the Zetas have long complained that the Sinaloa cartel enjoys police protection.

Despite debacles surrounding the Zetas and increasing violence, Deare - who physically resembles the tough but fair minded under-secretary of defence played by Harrison Ford in the fictional drug war thriller Patriot Games - thinks Mexico needs more, not less, US involvement.

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Zetas' alleged current leaders, Heriberto Lazcano, known as Z-3 and Miguel Trevino, or Z-40, were first recruited by Osiel Cardenas

group has mounted the severed heads of its victims on pikes in urban areas, posted torture and execution videos on the internet, forced poor migrants into prostitution and massacred college students during house parties.

"Other cartels have accused them of not following the 'gentlemen's code' of drug trafficking and causing undue violence," Bricker told Al Jazeera.

"At one time, it was considered bad form to kill pregnant women, but not any more." For safety concerns, Bricker didn’t want to say where she lives in Mexico.

Deare estimates "probably more than 500" GAFE personnel received special forces training. He is unsure exactly how long the programme lasted. The Zetas came to the attention of Mexico’s Attorney General’s office in 1999.

After US training, GAFE operatives defected from the Mexican military to become hired guns, providing security to the Gulf cartel, a well established trafficking organisation, according to Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas program of the International Relations Center.

"They split from the Gulf cartel and formed as a cartel in their own right," Carlsen, based in Mexico City, told Al Jazeera.

The Zetas' alleged current leaders, Heriberto Lazcano, known as Z-3 and Miguel Trevino, or Z-40, were first recruited by Osiel Cardenas, the now-jailed leader of the Gulf cartel. The name "Zetas" originates from the radio code "Z" used by top military commanders in Mexico.

But unlike Zorro, the Mexican outlaw hero who also used the "Z" alias, Los Zetas steal from everyone, not just the rich. And they certainly don’t give much back to the poor, except the corpses of their relatives. "They are just known for being a different kind of human being," says Bricker.

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Founders of the Zetas drug gang learned special forces techniques at Ft. Bragg before waging a campaign of carnage.

Despite the deployment of 50,000 troops, Mexico seems to be losing the 'war on drugs' [AFP]

(U.S. BORDER WITH MEXICO) - It was a brutal massacre even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug war: 72 migrant workers gunned down by the "Zetas" - arguably the country's most violent cartel - and left rotting in a pile outside a ranch in Tamaulipas state near the US border in late August.

The Zetas have a fearsome reputation, but the real surprise comes not in their ruthless use of violence, but in the origins of where they learned the tricks of their bloody trade.

Some of the cartel's initial members were elite Mexican troops, trained in the early 1990s by America’s 7th Special Forces Group or "snake eaters" at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, a former US special operations commander has told Al Jazeera.

“They were given map reading courses, communications, standard special forces training, light to heavy weapons, machine guns and automatic weapons,” says Craig Deare, the former special forces commander who is now a professor at the US National Defence University.

"I had some visibility on what was happening, because this [issue] was related to things I was doing in the Pentagon in the 1990s," Deare, who also served as country director in the office of the US Secretary of Defence, says.

The Mexican personnel who received US training and later formed the Zetas came from the Airmobile Special Forces Group (GAFE), which is considered an elite division of the Mexican military.

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killing of a cruiser near a popular beach in St. Thomas earlier this year has sparked some big changes in the area

The killing of a cruiser near a popular beach in St. Thomas earlier this year has sparked some big changes in the area, according to a report today in the Virgin Islands Daily News.

The news outlet says Coki Point Beach has undergone a massive cleanup over the past three months that has made it safer for locals and tourists alike.

Carnival passenger Lizmarie Perez Chapparro died in July after being caught in the middle of a shootout between warring gangs near the beach. The Associated Press reported at the time the girl was struck by a bullet as she rode with her family on a "safari bus" that ferries tourists across the island.

The girl and her family had arrived in St. Thomas earlier in the day aboard the 2,758-passenger Carnival Victory.

St. Thomas in recent years has been the scene of a growing "plague of violence," as one prominent official has called it, but Chapparro's killing marked the first time the violence has spilled over into the the territory's all-important tourism sector, and it brought swift calls from politicians and tourism leaders for a crackdown on crime.

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14 members associated with two gangs arrested since April during this crackdown. The gangs are the 13 Avenue Hot Boyz and the 12 Court Cowboys

dozen known gang members are off the streets along with 31 illegal weapons after Miami police went on the offensive in Operation Hammerhead. At a news conference Wednesday morning, Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito announced the results of Operation Hammerhead, a several month operation designed to reduce crime in the city's Liberty Square Project.

In all, Chief Exposito said police got 31 guns off the street and made 14 arrests of gang members responsible for violent crimes.

The big priority was getting the illegal weapons off the street.

"This is the type of weapon we've taken off the street," said Chief Exposito as he held up an assault rifle. "This particular rifle was stolen in North Carolina."

The weapons, displayed on a two tables for reporters, could have taken many lives, according to the chief. They were confiscated from 14 members associated with two gangs arrested since April during this crackdown. The gangs are the 13 Avenue Hot Boyz and the 12 Court Cowboys.

"The result of Operation Hammerhead is proof of the Miami Police department's commitment to address violent crime even before it occurs," said Chief Exposito. "I am so proud of the work that the officers in the Miami Police Department have done."

Those arrested face a series of charges including possessing illegal weapons. Police say one young person was notorious. 18-year-old Timothy Smith, a 13 Avenue Hot Boyz leader, is alleged to have sold 17 guns to undercover officers.

"These officers are committed and determined to rid the city of gang activity. Liberty Square is a neighborhood just like any other neighborhood where good people deserve the right to live in peace and tranquility," said Exposito.

Operation Hammerhead focused on arms dealings and violent crimes in the Liberty Square Project that has been plagued by shootings including one that prompted community outrage in August when a 22-month old girl was shot in the foot by a stray bullet.

"I have no words to describe this. All I can say is these officers did a phenomenal job," said Exposito.

Four of the fourteen people arrested are juveniles. The chief said many are recruited by gang members at a very early age, which makes many Liberty Square residents applaud this crackdown.

"There's too much violence here. There are too many killings. Something needed to be done to stop this," said resident Mike Pratt.

Marvin Pratt agrees but said Operation Hammerhead is only part of the solution.

"This crackdown needs to continue. It can't just stop. And all this needs to go further. We need programs for the young kids. They don't have enough to do. Some of this violence has become ingrained in them. We need to work with these young kids," said Marvin Pratt.

"This needs to be part of a continuous operation," Pratt told CBS4's Peter D'Oench. "This can't just last a few months. This is great that these guns were taken away, but in the long run, we need to reach these kids when they are young. Find stuff to occupy them. Right now they have no jobs. They are desperate. They have nothing to. They have no type of training. They stay at home and raise themselves."

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