The Australian March 4, 2009
THE US Defence Department has estimated Mexico's two most deadly drug cartels have a combined strength of more than 100,000 foot soldiers, an army that rivals Mexico's armed forces and threatens to turn the country into a narco-state.
"It's moving to crisis proportions," a senior Defence official told The Washington Times. The official said the cartels' "foot soldiers" were on a par with Mexico's army of about 130,000.
The disclosure underlined the size of the challenge Mexico and the US faced as they struggled to contain what was increasingly looking like a civil war along theUS-Mexico border, the newspaper report said.
In the past year, about 7000 people have died -- more than 1000 in January alone. The conflict has become increasingly brutal, with victims beheaded and bodies dissolved in vats of acid.
The paper noted that the death toll in Mexico in the first months of this year dwarfed that in Afghanistan, where about 200 fatalities, including 29 US troops, were reported in the first two months of 2009.
About 400 people, including 31 US military personnel, died in Iraq during the same period.
The Mexican Government yesterday poured 700 extra federal police into Ciudad Juarez, a city bordering Texas where local police have been overwhelmed by drug violence. The police joined 3200 federal troops, who arrived in the city over the weekend.
The biggest and most violent combatants in the Mexican drug wars are the Sinaloa cartel and its main rival, "Los Zetas" or the Gulf Cartel, whose territory runs along the Texas borderlands.
The Washington Times report said the two cartels appeared to be negotiating a truce or merger to defeat rivals and better withstand government pressure.
US officials told the paper the consequences of such a pact would be grave.
"I think if they merge or decide to co-operate in a greater way, Mexico could potentially have a national security crisis," the US Defence Department official said. He said the two had amassed so many people and weapons that Mexican President Felipe Calderon was "fighting for his life" and "for the life of Mexico right now".
Mexico was behind only Pakistan and Iran as a top US national security concern, ranking above Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defence official said.
Former CIA director Michael Hayden, who left the agency in January, put Mexico second to Iran as a top national security threat to the US.
His successor, Leon Panetta, said at his first news conference that the agency was "paying ... a lot of attention to" Mexico.
The deployment to the border town of Ciudad Juarez has tripled the number of troops and federal police officers operating there as part of Mr Calderon's offensive against drug traffickers.
The city is without a police chief. Roberto Orduna Cruz quit last week after several officers were slain and someone posted threats saying more would be killed unless he stepped down.
He is expected to be replaced by a figure from the military.
The move would represent a continuation of Mr Calderon's strategy of relying on the army and federal police to counter drug-trafficking gangs in the country's main smuggling corridors. He had deployed about 45,000 soldiers and 5000 police officers across the nation as part of the crackdown, launched two years ago.
Ciudad Juarez, which had about 1600 killings last year, has been on edge over the police chief's resignation and threats that appeared against the mayor.
The boost in police numbers in Ciudad Juarez came as more than 800 federal and local police were assigned yesterday to improve security in and around Mexico City's international airport after a series of armed robberies against travellers who exchanged money there.
Mexico City attorney-general Miguel Mancera said 460 additional city police officers had been assigned to patrol the areas surrounding the airport.
Federal police commissioner Rodrigo Esparza Federal said police had added 350 new agents to the airport since December.
Also yesterday, in the western state of Michoacan, attackers threw grenades at a city police chief's house and a police station in the city of Uruapan, injuring four officers.
Uruapan is one of many cities struggling with increasing drug violence. There were two other grenade attacks against police stations there in February.
Agencies
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25134484-2703,00.html
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