Reuters AlertNet Lite - Mexico to send troops to other states in drug war

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Mexico to send troops to other states in drug war

14 Dec 2006 22:56:26 GMT
Source: Reuters

MEXICO CITY, Dec 14 (Reuters) - After sending 7,000 members of the security forces to Michoacan state this week to battle suspected drug traffickers, Mexico announced plans on Thursday to send soldiers to other states to fight drug gangs.

"We started in Michoacan, where there was a more intense situation of violence, but the same will be applied in other states," Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told reporters.

Michoacan, the home state of President Felipe Calderon, has been hit by a vicious war between rival gangs fighting for control of lucrative drug routes and plantations.

Calderon's new government sent soldiers, federal police and Navy forces to Michoacan this week to try to recapture areas controlled by the gangs and destroy opium and marijuana plantations.

At least one suspected trafficker was killed in a battle with troops in the western state on Wednesday, the government said.

More than 500 hundred people have died in drug-related violence in Michoacan since January, part of a power struggle between rival cartels across Mexico that has killed about 3,000 people in the last two years.

The southern state of Guerrero and areas along the U.S. border have also been badly hit by the drug feud.

The ruthlessness of the gangs, who in one infamous attack rolled five severed heads onto the dance floor of a nightclub in Michoacan in September, has shocked even crime-hardened Mexico.

The violence has spread from northern border states where marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine are smuggled into the United States, to Pacific coastal regions like Michoacan and tourist resort Acapulco.

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Last updated:Thu Dec 14 22:59:15 2006