Mexico's cartels are increasingly desperate due to a cross-border crackdown and a shift in the cocaine market from the US to Europe. A record 85 extraditions from Mexico to the US in 2008 has contributed to a power vacuum that sparked an all-out war among the cartels as they battle for routes to the US and control of Mexico's growing domestic drug market with twice as many deaths in Mexico last year and more than 1,000 people killed in the first eight weeks of this year

Credit : AP