No time for complacency

Opinion: December 6, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Dallas Morning News: For several years, the Dallas Morning News has regularly editorialized that the Mexican government must get tougher, smarter and bolder in dealing with drug thugs marauding through the border area, particularly in corpse-strewn Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso. Last week, law enforcers moved in and arrested Arturo Gallegos Castrellon, reportedly responsible for 80 percent of Juarez’s killings since 2009.

Coupled with several other arrests or killings of major cartel figures this year — including Tuesday’s arrest of La Familia cartel leader Jose Alfredo Landa Torres in Michoacan — Gallegos’ capture offers the best hope yet that Juarez residents can, at least momentarily, experience some relief from the daily beheadings and other terrorist acts that had made it the murder capital of the world. Mexican law enforcers finally are showing signs of significant progress.

As one of the reputed chief enforcers for the Juarez cartel, Gallegos, 32, was responsible for carrying out the dirty work that kept the city cowering in fear and warned other cartels to stay away from this most valued turf in the cross-border drug trade. Two of his top lieutenants were arrested as well.

Still a gateway

But one important item hasn’t changed: Juarez remains among the most lucrative gateways for drugs entering the U.S. market, which means Gallegos’ removal will, at best, be only a temporary respite.

For Mexico to take full advantage of Gallegos’ capture, police must move quickly to round up as many other Los Aztecas members as possible before they have a chance to regroup under new leadership and resume their violence.

This is a time to rejoice that a vicious reputed mass murderer is off the streets, but it’s no time for hubris. Tougher, smarter, bolder remains the battle call in a drug war where the enemy has proven highly adaptable and decapitation tends to pose only a temporary setback.