San Bernardino County Sun - 'Here we are prisoners'

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - The gunfire was deafening. Street corners all over the city were darkened by smoke from grenades and light artillery.
The dead lay in pools of blood flowing into the gutters that drain into the Rio Grande.

Men with automatic assault rifles stood stoic after the carnage. Then, one by one, they picked up the bodies of their victims, threw them into the back of pickup trucks and headed out of downtown.

Bystanders hid inside shops, behind trash bins - wherever they could find refuge from the explosive showdown between members of rival drug cartels.

"(I watched as) the men threw the bodies into the back of the trucks and SUVs," whispered Manuel, who was working at a parking garage that


day. "This city is controlled from the inside out by the cartels. ... They are killing anyone who gets in their way."

Here we are prisoners'