Drug War, Mexico Drug War | featured news

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.