Drugs lord Arturo Beltran Leyva killed in shootout

One of Mexico's most wanted men, the drugs lord and self-styled "boss of bosses" Arturo Beltran Leyva, has been shot dead by members of the Mexican Navy in a two-hour gun battle at a luxury apartment complex in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.

For President Felipe Calderon, it represents one of the greatest victories in his three-year war on the country's billion-dollar narcotics trade.

For the Obama administration, which only this week gave the Mexican Air Force five Bell helicopters to help the cause, it means the removal of a man held responsible for putting 200 metric tons of cocaine on the streets of United States cities over the past two decades.

Beltran Leyva, known for beheading his enemies and keeping corrupt police on side with generous payola, died along with four members of his cartel when 200 sailors raided the 'Altitudes' apartments. One of them killed himself rather than be taken prisoner.

The Beltran Leyva cartel controlled smuggling routes in central and southern Mexico and the Mexican capital and was allied with the Gulf cartel which, with its notorious Zeta hitmen, controls northeastern Mexico.

News of Beltran Leyva's death came as the severed heads of six policemen were found left in plastic bags out a church in the north of Mexico. Police said the beheadings were a revenge attack by the Gulf cartel for the killing by police of 10 gang members last week.

Beltran Leyva, understood to be in his late 40s, was one of five brothers who split from the Sinaloa cartel several years ago when they fell out with Sinaloa's leader,  Joaquin 'Shorty' Guzman , famous for his private army, 'The Men in Black'.

The subsequent turf way between the Sinaloa cartel and the alliance of Beltran Leyva and the Gulf cartel has caused much of the recent bloodshed in Mexico: a total of 14,000 people have died since Calderon came to power in December 2006 and vowed to stamp out the drugs war.

Despite assigning 45,000 troops to the job, it has been an uphill battle, due partly to the endemic corruption among Mexican officials. Thanks to the protection of police he had paid off, Beltran Leyva was able to move relatively freely between fabulous houses and upmarket apartments like the one in which he died, despite having a $2.4m bounty on his head.

As The First Post reported in a picture special from Mexico, members of a gang working for Beltran Leyva were found last October housed in a mansion outside Mexico City. The opulence of their quarters was staggering - it even included a private zoo housing African lions, a rare albino tiger and two black panthers. ·