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GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Mexican forces located the drug kingpin known as “El Mencho,” whom they killed in a major operation over the weekend, in part by tracking one of his girlfriends to a secluded cabin, Mexican officials said Monday.

Officials canceled school in some states and warned communities to stay inside as reports spread of violent cartel reprisals, and authorities deployed thousands of troops to the western Mexican state of Jalisco. But Mexico’s president said Monday the country was under control and returning to normalcy.

Security forces closed in on Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, 59, at a cabin in Tapalpa, in Jalisco. He fled as his bodyguards opened fire. Eight cartel members were killed in the gun battle, Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Mexico’s secretary of national defense, told reporters Monday.

Authorities captured the cartel leader, wounded by gunfire, in nearby woodlands. They took him, two of his bodyguards, and a wounded soldier by helicopter to get medical treatment, but they died en route, Trevilla said. Officials decided to head for an airport in Michoacán to transport the bodies by air force plane to Mexico City.

Mexican special forces and National Guard troops helped plan and execute the operation, with support from the Mexican Air Force, Trevilla said. Mexican troops “accomplished their mission,” he said, emotional and tearful, and demonstrated the “strength of the Mexican state, without a doubt.”

The killing of Mexico’s most powerful drug lord provoked violence: Beginning Sunday, the cartel burned vehicles, blocked highways, attacked gas stations and banks, and set other fires, said Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s top security official. The government registered 85 blockades across the country, with 18 in Jalisco alone, and 27 other acts of violence against authorities. Seventy people were detained in seven states. More than 25 security officials were killed in the operation, as was a 59-year-old woman. More than 30 “criminals” were also killed, García Harfuch said. He praised Mexican forces for “debilitating an organization with international reach.”

Harfuch called Oseguera’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel the “principal” organization responsible for violence in the country, “including homicide, human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and armed attacks against authorities.”

In an overnight statement, the U.S. Embassy issued alerts covering areas of 18 Mexican states — more than half the total. It warned Americans in eight cities, including popular tourist destinations such as Puerto Vallarta and Cancún, to shelter in place, citing dangers from blocked roads and criminal activity.

In a late-night message, President Claudia Sheinbaum urged Mexicans to remain “informed and calm.”

Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco, was among the cities hit hardest in Sunday’s initial wave of violence. Pablo Lemus Navarro, Jalisco’s governor, said in a video on social media that he had declared a “code red” emergency, suspending public transportation, major events, and school on Monday.

Photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of Oseguera’s killing showed the burned-out wreckage of cars and buses blocking Guadalajara street junctions and entrances to businesses, with surrounding neighborhood streets largely empty after residents were warned to stay inside.

In Puerto Vallarta, a vacation resort on Jalisco’s Pacific coast, footage verified by Reuters showed black smoke billowing over the city and burning vehicles blocking a highway underpass.

Oseguera was Mexico’s most dominant cartel leader, expanding the Jalisco New Generation Cartel into a major power that took control of lucrative drug routes into the United States. The cartel, which traffics large quantities of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine across the U.S.-Mexico border, eventually eclipsed the rival Sinaloa Cartel as Mexico’s most powerful group.

According to a statement from Mexico’s Defense Ministry, security forces had intended to detain Oseguera, but a shootout forced them to return fire.

TEL AVIV — In Ramat Aviv, a quiet and green neighborhood in northwest Tel Aviv, some of the buildings hit by Iranian missiles during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last June still stand in ruins.

Chen, 44, a resident of one of the damaged apartments still undergoing renovation, said that although he, his wife, and their children, age 10 and 7, were not in the apartment at the time, it was not easy to recover. “It took us a lot of time to stabilize,” said Chen, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by first name out of concern for his family’s safety.

Now, as the United States assembles a massive amount of war-fighting machinery in the Middle East, and U.S. officials say the Trump administration appears ready to undertake an extended military assault on Iran, Israelis are once again preparing for war. Such an attack risks Iranian retaliation not just against U.S. military targets but also against Israel.

Similar anxiety is now gripping many Iranians and others throughout the region who could get caught in the prolonged conflict.

“There is a sense of stress; it is a very unpleasant feeling,” Chen said. “If it starts — should we stay in Ramat Aviv? Should we leave?” He doesn’t want his children to experience an attack; the sirens and explosions caused them anxiety, he said, adding that evacuating poses its own challenges: “You don’t know when it will actually happen, and you also don’t want to get stuck.”

The 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran in June killed at least 29 people in Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. In Iran, at least 610 people were killed, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

“We are prepared for any scenario. And if the Ayatollahs make the mistake of attacking us, they will experience a response they cannot even imagine,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at an IDF officers’ graduation ceremony on Thursday.

Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, one of Israel’s largest hospitals, also sustained a direct hit from an Iranian missile in June, causing minor injuries and extensive damage.

“It will take several more years until we finish rebuilding everything that was destroyed,” Shlomi Codish, the medical center’s director general, said. A quarter of the hospital’s beds and more than a third of its operating rooms have been unusable since the strike, Codish said.

Now, the hospital is preparing for the possibility of another war. “Once the order is given, we’ll have to move 400 to 500 patients on very short notice, including premature babies and elderly patients on ventilators,” he said. They will be moved to the hospital’s protected spaces or discharged home.

“This is our reality in the Middle East; unfortunately, we are a bit more skilled at this due to the circumstances,” Codish said. Beyond treating the population of southern Israel, he said the hospital must also focus on the staff’s resilience.

There were 2,300 people there the day the missile hit, he said. “When things escalate, it’s a heavy emotional burden for a place that’s already been targeted, including the feeling that the Iranians know exactly how to target us,” he said. “We are working hard with the team to restore their sense of security.”

After more than two years of Israel fighting on various fronts — from Gaza to Iran and Lebanon — many Israelis seem accustomed to military threats, at least on the surface.

Amid the preparations, most Israelis continue their daily routines, going to work and school until sirens are heard or further instructions are issued by the Home Front Command.

IDF spokesperson BG Effie Defrin said Friday that “the IDF remains vigilant in defense” and that there is there is “no change in the guidelines.”

“It’s very weird to have different life-threatening things fill you with fear in different ways,” said Amalya Liebermann, 27, a video director and editor from Tel Aviv. “But just trying to keep some sort of normalcy and continue with at least communal living in a way, I think that helps a lot.”

While Israeli news anchors and commentators attempt to parse statements from President Donald Trump pointing to the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran, Liebermann chose to spend Saturday afternoon in the warm late-winter sun with her friend Rani Assa Polansky, 26.

They met in one of the city’s more crowded squares, which also became a memorial site for the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack. “After the previous Iranian war, which was really tough and scary, even thinking about the possibility is so anxiety-inducing that it makes me freeze. So I prefer not to think about it,” Liebermann added.

Assa Polansky also prefers not to think of the possibility, but said her boyfriend packed an emergency bag with passports and a bottle of water.

Unlike the campaign in June, when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, current and former Israeli officials say that Israel now is not expected to strike first and will defer to the U.S., joining only if necessary. “The U.S. is leading, and Israel is playing second fiddle,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Israel’s Security Cabinet, told Galatz Radio last week.

“As for when Israel joins, we have made it clear: If anyone in Iran tries to divert the fire toward the State of Israel, we will exact a very heavy price,” Cohen added.

“We need to continue to stay out of it, in coordination with the Americans, of course,” former national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Channel 12. “When they need us, we know how to be there.”

“The level of coordination and cooperation with the U.S., as well as the state of readiness within Israel, is at its peak,” Brig. Gen. (Res.) Ran Kochav, former Air and Missile Defense Commander and IDF spokesperson, told the Washington Post.

“For 30 years, all Israeli governments tried to ensure that the Iranian problem would not just be an Israeli problem, and they succeeded,” Kochav added. “The Americans are now leading this effort, and we should be pleased with that, staying involved and coordinated — and perhaps even participating, if the Americans agree. There is an opportunity here that likely won’t return in the coming years.”

Meanwhile, Iranian and U.S. officials have been engaged in talks that Washington hopes will secure limits on Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump said Thursday that Iranian leaders “must make a deal” or “bad things will happen.”

Netanyahu told the annual conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that any deal must ban all Iranian enrichment of uranium and dismantle “the equipment and the infrastructure that allows” for enrichment.

“In Israel, there is a hope that the Americans will do the job for us,” said Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher in the Iran and the Shi’ite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies. “Netanyahu wants a broad campaign that will severely damage Iran’s strategic capabilities; for him, this is a dream come true.”

While the U.S. can significantly weaken Iran, Citrinowicz said “I still don’t see any strategic goal that can be achieved in this campaign.”

Some Israelis voiced exhaustion.

“None of us really wants another war, we’re all really tired,” said Daniel, 29, a resident of Tel Aviv, who works in the tech industry, and spoke on the condition that he identified only by first name because he is still on active reserve duty. “We do understand that if America attacks Iran, obviously, there will be repercussions against us.”

“In Israel, we have to hold these two emotions, right? One is that we want peace, and second, that understanding that maintaining it sometimes does come with a price,” Daniel said, adding that there is a “a theocratic regime over there that needs to be taken down, so we’re up for it,” because doing so will “do good for the whole region.”

Perhaps with a more moderate regime in Iran, he said, he would be able to visit the country one day. “Iran is a beautiful place,” he said, “and historically, Persians and Jews got along very well.”