The attempted use of a crude car bomb by one Mexican drug cartel against another in the state of Sinaloa this week suggests new and violent tactics that could eventually be used against civilians, a U.S. law enforcement official said.

During a shootout in the state capital, Culiacán, a car with two tanks of propane inside was placed outside the alleged safe house of a cartel group and set on fire, according to media reports. The tanks did not detonate.

Paramilitary cartel groups have already used bazookas, hand-held rockets and commando-style automatic weapons in their fight against each other and government forces.

"This is one more indication that President [Felipe] Calderón's strategy is working," a U.S. law enforcement official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Drug traffickers are so desperate that they are ratcheting up the game with car bombs. The eventual goal is to target civilians in an effort to pressure Calderón into laying off. That's their next step."

Some Mexican analysts have said just the opposite – that the government's inability to effectively crack down on the cartels has allowed them to become better armed and better trained than the Federal Police and soldiers fighting them.

The Mexican government said this week that it was deploying 1,260 more Federal Police to Sinaloa after drug-related violence killed at least 21 people, including a 12-year-old girl and other innocent civilians. The deployment raises the number of federal agents sent to Sinaloa to 2,000.

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