Thread: Mexico warns of long drug fight, more deaths ahead

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14376217.htm

Mexico warns of long drug fight, more deaths ahead
14 Feb 2006 19:16:30 GMT

Source: Reuters

MEXICO CITY, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Mexico warned on Tuesday of a long fight against drug traffickers and more deaths among security forces after two police chiefs were shot dead near Texas.

A spokesman for President Vicente Fox said the fatal shootings on Monday would not deter the government in its "frontal attack against organized crime."

More than 1,000 people died last year as gangs battled for control of lucrative smuggling routes to Texas from northeast Mexico, many in Nuevo Laredo across from Laredo, Texas.

"The Mexican state will emerge victorious, but there will still be a long period of conflict that no doubt means the loss of lives of officials involved in the fight," spokesman Ruben Aguilar told a news conference.

Monday's killings came as a surprise in normally peaceful Nuevo Leon state. Armed men burst into a police station in the town of Sabinas Hidalgo and snatched chief Javier Garcia at gunpoint. He was shot in the head and his body dumped outside town.

Later, gunmen shot Hector Ayala, the police chief of San Pedro Garza, a wealthy enclave of the state capital Monterrey, as he drove through the city in a sport utility vehicle.

Mexican media also said six people died in a confrontation between drug gangs in Durango state while in Michoacan the bodies of three men killed execution-style were found.

Washington has criticized Mexico for failing to halt the killings despite Fox's efforts to crack down on organized crime.

Fox said this week Mexico will soon extradite key drug-trafficking suspects to the United States, where they are wanted on criminal charges, after the Supreme Court opened the way to such extradition.

This is just another way for Mexico to extort more money from us under the guise of fighting the war on drugs and terror.