Eight more people have died in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, with police blaming warring leaders of a drug gang fighting to control a key entry point for illegal drugs into the United States.

Three teenagers were gunned down in the street, the Baja California state attorney general's office said Tuesday. Police found the bullet-riddled body of a man several blocks away. In another part of Tijuana, gunmen opened fire on a car, killing two men. Assailants attacked another car, injuring a police officer and killing his relative. In another incident, the body of a man was found near city hall.

Officials blame the rival cells of the Arellano Felix drug gang for the deaths and those of more than 100 people in the past two weeks alone. Hundreds of other people have been victims of similar slayings this year in Tijuana, which borders San Diego, Calif.

Execution-style killings, beheadings and shootouts have increased across the country over the past two years since the army and federal police cranked up their efforts against the drug trade.

The violence has spurred legislative action from Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who this month sent a sweeping security proposal to lawmakers aimed at fighting drug-related crime, reducing police corruption and streamlining the exchange of information on criminals between federal and local governments.

The Mexican government is sending more troops to Tijuana to quell the violence, but critics say it won't staunch Mexico's bleeding.

"What's happening here is a spiral," writer Eduardo Valle told the CBC's Connie Watson. "A violent spiral. It's a war against the stability of the nation."

Valle said deploying the military only increases the violence but doesn't get at the country's real crisis. Mexico is a narco nation where the cartels have more power than many state and local governments, he told Watson.

Cartel expert Ricardo Ravelo agreed. Both men, as well as leading politicians in Colombia, see a familiar pattern in Mexico, which they dub the Colombianization of Mexico.

"More than 60 per cent of Mexico's municipalities have been infiltrated by the cartels," Ravelo told Watson. "Eight per cent are completely controlled by the narco traffickers. It's a real concern."

With files from the Associated Press