Suspected Drug Gangs Kill Mayor In Western Mexico

Suspected drug gang hit men shot dead a mayor in western Mexico as he drove back from a day out with his family, the latest politician to die in Mexico's drug war, a state attorney general's office said on Monday.

Gunmen caught up to Mayor Marcelo Ibarra on a highway and shot him in the head on Sunday night as he was returning to his hometown of Villa Madero in Michoacan state, a key front in the government's army-led war against drug cartels.

"We believe this was linked to drug gangs, they were pursuing him," a spokeswoman at the state attorney general's office said. She said Ibarra's wife and two children were unharmed.

Police declined to say why the mayor was a target.

His murder, amid a spurt in drug killings in recent weeks, occurred six months after gunmen in northern Mexico killed former federal lawmaker and former mayoral candidate Juan Antonio Guajardo.

Michoacan is a flash point in President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug smugglers. The state has become a battleground between the Gulf Cartel from northeastern Mexico and traffickers from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico's most wanted drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

In Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, police found three bodies on Monday, two of which had been beheaded. They were dumped with messages threatening the police and rivals, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico so far this year, a faster pace than in 2007 when around 2,500 were murdered over the year.

The jump in violence comes as the U.S. Congress has scaled back President George W. Bush's plan to aid Mexico in its drug fight. The so-called Merida initiative -- which Bush proposed in October as a three-year $1.4 billion package providing aircraft, equipment and training -- initially was to offer Mexico $500 million in this fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

But lawmakers reduced this year's sum to $400 million and want the aid to focus less on military support and more on assistance to help build up Mexican law enforcement and judiciary agencies, as well as pledges on human rights.

Mexican Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino said on Monday that any conditions on the aid were "unacceptable."

"Incorporating unilateral measurements or evaluations ... would go against both the objective and spirit of the plan," he told reporters.

As the death toll rises, 53 percent of Mexicans believe drug gangs are winning the war against the government, a poll in the daily Reforma newspaper said on Sunday.