Cartel violence escalates in run-up to Guard border deployment

With President Obama one week away from sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the border, Mexican authorities announced the discovery on Saturday of 51 dead bodies, likely the work of the drug cartels responsible for growing levels of violence along the border.

Authorities were using refrigerated trucks to house the bodies on Saturday, some of which were found in pieces buried in holes, while others were buried near the surface, with some evidence suggesting that several may have been burned, according to the Associated Press.

An anonymous caller tipped authorities off earlier in the week, and investigators suspect drug traffickers.

“The majority of these bodies have tattoos of different types that could give us an indication about whether they belonged to one group or another and, among other things, determine whether they were linked to organized crime,” said Alejandro Garza y Garza, attorney general of Nuevo Leon state.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war against drug cartels in 2006, about 25,000 people have been killed in Mexico due to drug violence. Spillover violence has plagued U.S. border cities for the past several years as well, though it has gotten significantly better recently, according to the latest FBI statistics.

At the behest of border region lawmakers, the White House is planning to send more than a thousand National Guard troops to the region next Sunday to bolster the ranks of local law enforcement and federal border, customs and drug officials. 

Last week across the border from El Paso, Texas, members of a drug cartel took credit for a car bomb that killed a Mexican police office and two other people in Ciudad Juarez, the AP reports.