Border Wars Grow Violent

It's become common in Mexico: torture, kidnapping, murder — more than 1,500 drug related killings last year.

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports it is a crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border — hyper-violent drug cartels dying to dominate the $140 billion drug trade.

They are fighting for access to the United States, says Baja Attorney General Antonio Martinez Luna.

"Because the market is on the other side," he said.

But the carnage is here on the streets of Tijuana. A journalist was gunned down in front of his children, the second from his paper, "Zeta," killed for writing about the cartels. We first met the paper's editor after he was ambushed six years ago. His is the only city newspaper that still goes after the cartels. He goes nowhere now without body guards.

"It becomes a problem when journalists are afraid to write about narco-traffic," says Jesus Blancornelas through a translator. "And it's happening."

In Nuevo Laredo across from Laredo, Texas, it is a reign of terror by renegade soldiers turned cartel hit men. This small city is the murder and kidnap capital of Mexico — 44 victims were freed from this one safe house. In a recent shootout on residential streets, gangs held off police with a high-powered arsenal, including a bazooka. In June, new police chief Alejandro Dominguez was sworn in, vowing to crush the gangs.

He was gunned down seven hours after taking office. So much violence, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico temporarily closed the Nuevo Laredo consulate.

"Some say that I ordered the shutdown to punish the Mexican government for its failure to control violence in the region," says Ambassador Tony Garza. "And in a sense, that's true."

Ironically, the violence is largely a result of a crackdown by President Vicente Fox. His government has arrested thousands of drug traffickers, including kingpins and has killed others, triggering this blood bath by gangsters further down the totem pole.

There are even different names for different types of murders.

"There's a message for each way that they execute," Luna says.

They sent a message when three carloads of cartel hit men pulled along side a car and pumped in nearly 40 bullets, killing an assistant Tijuana police chief.

Human rights activist Victor Clark says brazen cartels now simply kill opponents they can't bribe or intimidate, forcing him to not speak out like he did before.

"I don't want to run the risk of being killed," Clark says.

It leads some to believe the cartels are winning.

"Yes, they are winning the war," Clark says.

A war that has Americans fearing violence too will find its way across the border.