That was the first thing I wondered, too: that’s a technique that was used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
One thing nobody likes to mention is that these drug gangs are NOT just criminal organizations. They are tied in with radical leftwing political groups. One of the reasons they have gotten away with things is because they have been protected by this connection, and one of the reasons they are really going crazy now is that this is an all-out attack not only on the immediate problem for them, the police, but on democracy and law in Mexico under the conservative party.
I think the US has been hampered from giving the necessary support in this because there are many people in the current administration who realize that the drug gangs are virtually nothing more than the funding wing of the radical left in Latin America.
“...this is an all-out attack not only on the immediate problem for them, the police, but on democracy and law in Mexico under the conservative party.”
The Mexicans are going to get to institute their all-night firing squads before we get to.