It's called "Heating up the plaza."

For those that don't know, a plaza is a border town between Mexico and the USA. Some of these are VERY valuable, like the Nuevo Laredo plaza which is where Los Zetas started their operations.

Anyways so one cartel decides they want to take another's plaza. They will send soldiers in specifically to kill civilians and police officers with no real discretion. They will also target the rival cartel but the main objective is to just kill. This causes the government to start sending in their soldiers thus making is hard for the defending cartel to continue their business. They will have to lay low while the military hunts them down. The military will crack down hard on them for some PR.

During this time the attacking cartel has retreated and is flooding the market from their plaza. Once the military the leaves, the attackers head back to finish off the weakened defenders. It makes it a lot easier since they haven't been selling product and have lost personnel.