Where is the fighting?

If you check the news, most sites and organizations will tend to focus on action occurring on the U.S. Mexico border. Last year in fact, according to bbc.com, there were over 1,600 deaths in Ciudad Juarez alone. On the west coast, three teenagers in Tijuana were gunned down, still wearing their school uniforms. And on the east coast, Los Zetas have become a enormous thorn in the side of their former employer, the Gulf Cartel, through economical competition, intimidation, and direct action. Many times this direct action involves decapitations, mutilations, and the killing of innocent civilians.

However, while states like Sinaloa, Chihuahua, and Nuevo Leon have seen a great deal of open fighting. Many other states have seen relatively little action. Though their our occasional arrests, shootings, and so forth in other states, the primary areas of action are either where drugs are smuggled into the country, or where they are smuggled out of the country. The map above highlights the regions where drugs are being smuggled. The map also points out some of the major drug cartels, which are broken down regionally. On the west coast: The Tijuana Cartel run by Areliano Felix, the Sinaloa Cartel run by Joaquin Guzman (who is viewed by many in the region as a local hero), as well as the Beltran Leyva orginization (which was once apart of the Sinaloa Cartel). Centrally, there are is La Familia (based in Michoacan), and north of that, the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, otherwise known as the Juarez Cartel. On the East Coast, are Los Zetas and their rivals the Gulf Cartel.

So where is the fighting taking place? It is where the money and heads of DTOs (Drug trade operations) reside.