The Drug War Next Door

Before you venture into Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, brace yourself to hear Texans tell you that you're crazy. Visiting friends in neighboring El Paso, Texas, a few days before Christmas, I was immediately warned, "Don't even think about going into Juarez."

Just across the shallow creek known as the Rio Grande from El Paso, one of the safest cities of its size in the nation, Juarez is a city under siege, the worst victim of Mexico's growing wars between drug cartels.

The tragedy is etched in daily news headlines. The day I arrived, two Mexican police officers were ambushed, shot to death while sitting in their patrol car. Just another bloody day in Juarez.

Hardly a day goes by without a new Juarez horror story in the El Paso Times:

Chicago Tribune