For two years, federal agents and police have been hauling away cocaine dealers in Monessen, Donora and Charleroi as part of a crackdown on narcotics and money-laundering.

Of the 32 people indicted so far, 11 are in federal prison and 21 others are awaiting trial. Agents have also seized cars, cash, coke and guns.

By most measures, this investigation has been a success.

Except that on the streets, kids from Donora and Monessen are still shooting each other.

The most recent incident happened March 8, when police said David Jeffries, 17, a Monessen High School student, wounded DeJuan Antone, 20, of Donora, as he sat in his car near a Monessen bar.

Mr. Antone drove off but crashed a few blocks away on Schoonmaker Avenue, the main street in town.

During a hospital interview last week, Mr. Antone told detectives that Mr. Jeffries shot him, according to an affidavit.

The motive isn't clear.

But ever since a July 1 beating in Monessen of 18-year-old Skyler Carter, of Donora, knots of young men have been trying to kill their rivals from across the Monongahela River.

The feud actually dates back long before that, but the attack triggered a wave of unprecedented violence for these two towns.

In the old days, the combatants would have used fists or knives to settle disputes. Now they've got guns -- and few think twice about using them.

"Donora and Monessen have always fought, but not like this," said Mark Gibson, chief of police in Monessen. "It's escalated. It's the society of youth today."

Officials and longtime residents who remember better times are concerned that someone -- particularly an innocent victim -- will get killed. Many shootings have happened in the middle of the day, with teens spraying bullets everywhere.

"It's sad to see, but things have changed here -- very much so," said Edward Johnson, of Knox Avenue in Monessen, after an incident on Jan. 20 in which Donora shooters fired 30 rounds at a group of Monessen youths walking near Second Street and Reed Avenue just after 3 p.m.

One victim, 17-year-old Nico Grogan, was wounded four times. Another was grazed by a bullet.

Moments before that shooting, police responded to gunfire near Mr. Johnson's home.

"I just keep to myself now," he said. "It's not safe out there."

Police said motives for the attacks have been difficult to pin down because the victims and suspects often aren't cooperating with investigators. Some are fights over girls or territory; others are retaliation for earlier violence.

When Skyler Carter was beaten up outside the Monessen Civic Center, police said, the reason was simple: He was from Donora.

He pulled up to the center with his mother, who works there. He waited in the car while she went inside, where a group of Monessen men was playing basketball. One of them saw Mr. Carter outside and got his buddies. They went out and beat Mr. Carter as he sat behind the wheel.

"They attacked him just because he was in the wrong place," said Chief Gibson.

Throughout that day and into the night, police responded to numerous reports of shots fired. At one scene, at McMahon Avenue and 12th Street, a bullet penetrated the screen door of a house.

Police later charged two young men, Cordaro Jackson and Alan Lomax, in Mr. Carter's beating. A few weeks later, Mr. Jackson was shot and wounded.

Next came a triple shooting on Oct. 3 outside a house on McKean Avenue in Donora. Mr. Lomax was wounded in that assault, along with Derrick Dixon of Charleroi and Joseph Heath of Monessen, son of Jo Jo Heath, a former NFL star from Monessen who himself was stabbed to death in a drug-related killing in 2003.

Police believe that shooting was over a girl. One of the attackers, Anthony "Jinx" Law, 24, of Donora, pleaded guilty and is serving 15 to 30 months in prison.

On Thursday, U.S. marshals captured a second suspect, Christian Lowe, at a McKean Avenue house.

The violence has continued in 2009.

When Nico Grogan was shot in January, he was with a group of young men set upon by another group that included Gregory Moon and John Duchi, both of Donora.

At a preliminary hearing, Mr. Grogan said Mr. Moon chased him, cursing and yelling "I got you ... " before shooting him.

Mr. Jeffries, the man arrested last week in the DeJuan Antone shooting, also was among Mr. Grogan's companions that day, although he wasn't hit.

According to an affidavit, Mr. Grogan told police that he heard on the street that Mr. Moon was out to get him "because he thinks that Grogan snitched on him for an attempted break-in a few weeks prior."

Mr. Moon and Mr. Duchi, both 19 at the time of the shooting, have been held for trial.

Three days after that incident, police arrested Mr. Moon at Mr. Duchi's house on Third Street in Donora, which had been the target of a state police raid in July that netted two assault rifles, a shotgun, a pistol and a bullet-proof vest.

The day after Mr. Moon's arrest, police said shooters opened fire on that house at 4:30 a.m., spraying it with at least 20 shots. Five people were inside but no one was hit.

Police later charged Delaney Detwiler and James Womack, 19-year-olds from Monessen, with firing the shots. They also charged Taunese Brown, 27, of Monessen, saying she drove the two men to the scene.

Mr. Detwiler had been on the run until Tuesday, when Monessen police found him hiding in a house on Reed Avenue. They also charged him with illegal possession of a .357 revolver, which was reported stolen in Penn Hills in 2007.

Whatever disputes are driving these shootings, the district attorneys in Washington and Westmoreland counties, Steven M. Toprani and John Peck, have vowed to end the violence.

Mr. Toprani did not return repeated calls. But Mr. Peck said he and his counterpart are working with the police and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives "to stop this shooting and make as many arrests as possible."

The Mon Valley office of the FBI had been working with state and local police since at least 2006 to bust drug dealers.

But in 2007, after a request for help, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan assembled members of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which is supported by federal grant money and has the power to deputize police officers as federal agents.

Ms. Buchanan and a veteran narcotics prosecutor, Mike Ivory, met in Donora with police and the FBI, ATF, Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. They crafted a plan to go after drug dealers with controlled buys, as they've done in recent years in Braddock, Duquesne and the North Side.

Law enforcement executed two rounds of search warrants in the area in February and October 2008.

Among those taken into federal custody in February was Tavius Smith, a former football star in Monessen who had tryouts with the Buffalo Bills, and two Donora men, Jamie Lightfoot and John Crews, both 37.

Mr. Lightfoot pleaded guilty and is serving 14 years in prison. Mr. Crews also pleaded guilty and is serving more than 15 years.

Mr. Smith is awaiting trial.

Agents confiscated $245,000 from his Reed Avenue home, along with drug paraphernalia and his vehicles. In a raid on his mother's house on Grant Street in Monessen, they also found three guns and another $20,000 in cash.

According to court papers, Mr. Smith said the guns were his and admitted that he was involved in "large-scale cocaine trafficking."

Ms. Buchanan said the drugs are coming into the Mon Valley from another state, although she wouldn't say which one.

While the federal investigation isn't directly targeting the young shooters, there are overlaps.

When agents arrested 61 people on Oct. 7, they took Edward Alford II, of Donora, into custody at a house on McKean Avenue. He and Brandon E. Thomas, also of Donora, had been named in a sealed indictment in June.

Inside the house, police found Anthony Law, who now is jailed in the Oct. 3 triple shooting in Donora.

In addition to drugs, Ms. Buchanan said her office has been targeting the proliferation of guns, identifying and tracing illegal firearms in the Mon Valley.

The Justice Department has made that a priority nationally in recent years. In the federal court system, penalties for illegal guns are much stiffer, there's no parole and defendants are sent to prisons far from home.

Based on his criminal record, for example, Mr. Detwiler could end up before a federal judge.

He's a convicted felon, so he isn't allowed to have a weapon, Chief Gibson said. If he's convicted in federal court of possessing that stolen .357, he'll face an automatic five years in prison.

Ms. Buchanan said the investigation isn't over. She plans to meet again with task force members in the next two weeks to assess their next move.