Opinion: ‘Mission accomplished’ in recapture of Mexican drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ -- but for how long?

Drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was recaptured Friday in Los Mochis after six months on the lam after a “breakout” from a Mexican prison. This is good news for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who tweeted “Mission accomplished” shortly after the news broke.

Guzman, head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, walked out of a maximum-security prison (his second prison break) in July through an impressively professional tunnel that, somehow, no one noticed being constructed. It cost Peña Nieto a lot of credibility.

The Mexican president regained some of it Friday, with congratulations coming quickly on social media from the likes of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency:

DEA is extremely pleased at the capture of Chapo Guzman. We congratulate the MX Government and salute the bravery involved in his capture

 and Arizona's controversial lawman, Sheriff Joe Arpaio:

A tip led the authorities to Guzman:

He was captured again Friday in a firefight between his bodyguards and Mexican marine special forces in the Sinaloa city of Los Mochis, on the Pacific coast and not far from his home, government officials said. Five of his associates were killed, six were injured and several captured, the navy said. One marine was wounded. The special forces were responding to a citizen’s tip regarding armed people in a home when they came under fire, the navy said.

The months on the run seem to have take their toll on Guzman, if photos from Mexican news media are any indication. (Including one image showing him in "esposas," or handcuffs.)

But the question in many minds now is, how long till Guzman slips away again?

And, then, of course, there were the inevitable Twitter jokes about Donald Trump's Twitter rumble with El Chapo:

mariel.garza@latimes.com

Follow me @marielgarzaLAT