The war in rural Nuevo Leon

The brutal war between Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel for control of drug trafficking and organized criminal operations continues to terrorize the rural areas of Nuevo Leon.

The majority of deaths linked to this war occur in the Monterrey metropolitan area, where most of the state and federal forces, including the military, are based.

This leaves few resources for the other municipalities of Nuevo Leon where the insecurity and violence is mostly unreported, and where many, if not most, of the local police forces who have not abandoned their towns and are still in uniform operate under orders from local criminal bosses.

The above graffiti has recently begun to appear in the towns of Allende and Santiago, announcing the name of the new Zeta boss in the area, "el Loco".

El Loco "controls" was no exaggeration as was shown last week when el Loco's orders that two young women in Allende be delivered by the municipal "polizetas" was obeyed and the bodies of the women were later found dismembered.

A resident of Monterrey recently stated, "My relatives in Villa de Santiago and Allende have told me that the area is becoming another Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas. You can't be on the streets past 10pm or you risk being abducted, and the price for release is $1,500 dollars, not pesos. If you don't pay its "putasos a la verga". In other words, pardon the language, they're going to fuck you up.

Forensic team members and state investigative police at a crime scene early Monday morning in Villa de Santiago. The dismembered body was abandoned at the intersection of De la Madrid and Mina, one block from the main plaza.

On Tuesday, the dismembered remains of an unidentified male were reported by motorists on a roadway in the municipality of General Teran. Most of the municipal police have quit in this agricultural center after several attacks on their installations and the mutilation and murder of two officers earlier this year.

Early Wednesday morning in the municipality of China, Nuevo Leon, the headless bodies of two men were found hanging from an overpass bridge on the highway that connects Monterrey to the border city of Reynosa Tamaulipas.

The dismembered remains of two women were also left at the scene, each body on either side of the the highway at both ends of the bridge.

China has been the scene of countless confrontations between Gulf cartel gunmen from Reynosa and Zetas from Monterrey and operations from both state and federal authorities to impose the rule of law in this area. The rule of law has been absent since China is another municipality with almost no local police officers left to protect the community.