Pubdate: Tue, 15 May 2007
Source: International Herald-Tribune (International)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2007
Contact:  http://www.iht.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/212
Author: The Associated Press

MEXICAN OFFICIAL SAYS NEW DRUG WAR STRATEGY PROMPTS ATTACKS ON ARMY

MEXICO CITY: A top Mexican anti-drug official said Tuesday that 
Mexican soldiers and police are opening "thousands of fronts" against 
drug cartels, prompting intense attacks on security forces.

Mexico is going after the cartels' entire structures rather than just 
leaders, sending large detachments of soldiers and federal police 
into areas where traffickers operated almost openly, Assistant 
Secretary of Public Safety Patricio Patino told The Associated Press 
on Tuesday.

Traffickers have responded by launching a spate of previously rare 
attacks on troops, police and investigators. Monday saw a coordinated 
attack by gunman on a high-ranking intelligence official who 
investigated drug smuggling. He was shot dead in an SUV on his way to 
work at the attorney general's office in the Mexican capital.

President Felipe Calderon's strategy of sending 24,000 soldiers and 
police to go after everyone from cartel leaders to growers, dealers 
and enforcers is radical for Mexico, and "opens up thousands of 
fronts," Patino said during an interview in his closely guarded 
Mexico City offices.

"It was thought that if you cut off the head, the body dies," he 
said. "But now we see that's not true. That maybe the body reproduces 
itself like a Hydra."

The conflict's toll is rising sharply, including the ambush killings 
of five soldiers in the mountains of western Michoacan state this 
month. About 1,000 drug-related killings have been recorded this 
year, a rate that would soar past last year's death toll of 2,000.

Patino said there is no indication that the cartels want to take on 
the army directly, the way leftist rebels involved in drug 
trafficking systematically confront the Colombian army. "I don't 
believe that organized crime has specifically targeted the army," he said.

But the military presence has exposed soldiers to more gunfire from 
increasingly well-armed traffickers - and Patino said the United 
States is partly to blame, reiterating Mexico's demand that the U.S. 
do more to keep high-powered assault weapons and grenades from flowing south.

In March, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said the vast majority 
of these weapons are smuggled from the United States, and Patino made 
a fresh appeal Tuesday for U.S. authorities to cut off the supply.

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on 
that side of the border," Patino said. "What we have asked the 
American government ... is that they put clear controls on the 
shipments of weapons."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman