Mexican Drug Honcho Killed in Shootout

Shots rang out for hours in a pitched gun battle between Mexico's military and a drug cartel, and when the dust cleared, a key drug kingpin, Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, or "Tony the Storm," lay dead along with four cronies and three marines. Cardenas, 48, is one of Mexico's most wanted and has a $5 million reward on his head in the US, and died in a sting operation in the border town of Matamoros, reports the AP.

A soldier and a local reporter were also killed in the crossfire of the operation that was the culmination of 6 months of intelligence gathering. Troops who went to arrest Cardenas were greeted with grenades and heavy gunfire, beginning the city-wide shootout. But Cardenas' death is a big win for President Felipe Calderon's bitter war on drugs: "Today, we have taken another meaningful step toward the dismantling of criminal groups that do so much damage to our country," says a presidential spokesman. (More Felipe Calderon stories.)