Explained | Mexico’s week of bloodshed. What is going on?

Mexico's 'War on Drugs' started in 2006 with former President Felipe Calderon, who sent in armed forces to tackle the increasingly powerful drug cartels, which had shifted gears from smuggling cocaine for the Colombian cartels to becoming full narcotrafficking operations themselves. Since then, more than 200,000 people have been killed in gang-fueled violence and over 40,000 are missing.

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On Monday, cartel hitmen shot dead at least 13 police in an ambush in Aguililla in the western state of Michoacan, long convulsed by turf wars between drug gangs, latterly the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and its enemies. AP Photo

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in December, promising not to repeat the “failed policies” of past administrations that have done little to stem a tide of drug-related violence that cost some 29,000 lives last year.