Mexico is making a radical change in the way it deals with its growing number of “self-defense” groups, essentially legalizing them.  At the same time, authorities arrested one of four leaders of the “Knights Templar” drug cartel, which the vigilantes have fought in recent weeks.

“The self-defense forces will become institutionalized, when they are integrated into the Rural Defense Corps,” the Interior Department said in a statement. 

Vigilante leaders will submit lists of their members to the Defense Department, and the army will temporarily oversee the groups.  Members will be allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.  The military will provide the groups with “all the means necessary for communications, operations and movement.”

Meanwhile, Mexican troops captured one of the nation’s most wanted drug lords.  Dionicio Loya Plancarte is known as El Tio (Uncle), and he’s one of the leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state – an area so lawless that people lost all confidence in the police and began arming themselves and retaking the state from the cartel.

But the Knights Templar say there’s no way the local farmers could have armed themselves so well, as many are carrying military assault weapons.  The Knights Templar say the farmers are being armed by the “New Generation”, a rival drug cartel from neighboring Jalisco state.