The dead men, who appeared to have been tortured and whose wrists were bound and heads were covered with tape, were found about 6 a.m. after they they'd been shot multiple times, Chihuahua state police said. Police identified six of the seven as Miguel Humberto Pera Carrillo, 25; Carlos Campos Ramos, 41; Raul Humberto Cazares Flores, 30; Hector Arellano Medina, 26; Ivan Ramirez Huerta, 28; and Sergio Gerardo Cuevas Vega, 20.

The executions were the largest multiple slaying in Juárez since the Aug. 13 massacre of eight men in a drug rehabilitation center. The killings are part of an unrelenting wave of violence that has left more than 1,300 dead since a war between drug cartels broke out in January.

"This is the worse I've ever seen it," said Robert Almonte, a retired deputy chief with the El Paso Police Department who spent much of his career working narcotics. "This is really an almost unreal situation especially since it's happening right across the border."

At the scene of the seven deaths, Chihuahua state investigators found 70 bullet casings. Some of the victims appeared to have been kneeling when shot.

Elsewhere, three banners with undisclosed messages were left next to the bodies found on Camino Viejo a San Jose by Avenida Paseo de la Victoria. The slain men had not been identified. Police said one of the men had a tattoo of "Ghetto" on his abdomen and "GE" on his neck.

The multiple killings in Juárez are similar to other drug-related mass slayings in various regions of Mexico.

"We saw it in Nuevo Laredo. We see it in Tijuana and throughout the interior," said filmmaker Gary A. "Rusty" Fleming Jr., who made the documentary "Drug Wars: Silver or Lead" about narco-violence in Mexico. "Essentially, they are generally retaliation hits."

Fleming is a producer of an episode on the "Gangland" television series on the History Channel to premiere Friday on the Zetas, the paramilitary enforcers who are now thought to be running the Gulf cartel.

"Juárez has become a lawless place. I don't know of any other way to describe it," said Fleming, who has recently been in the city. "It's probably the easiest place on earth to get away with a crime right now."

The Juárez crime wave, including the extortion of businesses, carjackings and robberies, has spawned a chain e-mail circulating in the Borderland calling for a "civil curfew" asking the city's residents to stay home in protest this Saturday night.

"Leave the streets that night to the criminals and their accomplices," the e-mail states in Spanish.

Among the other slayings Tuesday, a girl about 14 was killed along with a man in a shooting at 2 p.m. in downtown Juárez in which at least 52 shots were fired at a sport utility vehicle. In addition, a man identified as Raul Haro, 27, was found shot to death in a white Nissan Altima with Texas plates about 4 p.m. in Colonia Galeana.

Police said no arrests were made in any of slayings.