The killing yesterday of Jesus Segovia Sanchez, a law enforcement officer in the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo that borders the U.S. state of Texas, is another grim reminder of the blood being spilled in the Mexican drug wars. It was the 11th killing this year of a member of the town’s law enforcement organisation and the 116th murder in the town of 300,000. His partner, Sergio Omar Escobedo, was shot four times by the assault rifle-wielding assailants but was lucky enough to survive.

Nuevo Laredo, which is connected to the Texan town of Laredo by three bridges over the Rio Grande, is at the centre of a fierce battle between two rival drug cartels for the lucrative smuggling of cocaine across the border. The two rivals are the “Gulf Cartel” – allegedly headed by Osiel Cardenas, who was arrested in 2003 and now resides in La Palma prison, west of Mexico City – and the “Sinaloa Cartel”, originally from the western state of Mexico of the same name and now attempting to move into the area.

Working for the Gulf Cartel as its enforcers is a militia group called “Los Zetas”, with many of its members said to be originally from the Mexican military where they were trained by U.S. special forces. They are notorious for their violence and cruelty. Texas TV station News Channel 5 KRGVTV recently interviewed two men who claimed to work for Los Zetas. The ex-military men signed up with Los Zetas because they paid more money than the Mexican government. They agreed to be interviewed, apparently, because they couldn’t stomach the targeting of innocents by Los Zetas and wanted to get the word out. They didn’t say whether they would actually quit.

The interviews can be found here (6 mins, 21 secs) and here (2 mins, 4 secs). Windows Media Player is required. If you’re not a fan of Michael Bay, you may prefer the transcript for the first interview. The transcript for the second can be found here.