Thread: Gunmen kill top Mexican police official in Mexico City

Gunmen kill top Mexican police official in Mexico City
By E. Eduardo Castillo / Associated Press
Article Launched: 06/26/2008 02:19:40 PM MDT


MEXICO CITY - Gunmen killed a top federal police official and his bodyguard Thursday as they ate lunch in Mexico City, the latest attack against authorities waging a nationwide battle against drug cartels.
Igor Labastida was director of the federal police division monitoring trafficking and contraband, said a Mexico City security official who was not authorized to give his name. Federal police refused to comment.

Labastida's second bodyguard and a woman were injured.

The motive for the attack was unclear and police officials had made no arrests.

The assault was the latest against Mexican officials involved in the nationwide fight against drugs and organized crime.

Edgar Millan Gomez, Mexico's acting federal police chief, was killed in May outside his Mexico City apartment. Police blamed the Sinaloa drug cartel. President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 20,000 troops across Mexico to take back territory controlled by some of the world's most powerful drug gangs.

The cartels have responded with unprecedented violence, killing more than 4,000 people since Calderon took office in December 2006.

The homicides also have become more gruesome, with hit men beheading their enemies and leaving threatening messages with the victims' bodies.






http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_9705589

REFILE-Gunmen kill senior Mexico policeman during lunch
26 Jun 2008 23:08:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Refiling to correct typo in headline)

By Miguel Angel Gutierrez

MEXICO CITY, June 26 (Reuters) - A Mexican police chief and three bodyguards were shot to death as they ate lunch in Mexico City on Thursday, the latest police slaying in a drug war that has killed more than 1,600 people this year.

Heavily armed gunmen burst into a restaurant in the north of the capital and shot Igor Labastida, a regional director for trafficking and contraband in Mexico's federal police force, and the bodyguards, a police spokesman said.

"Several men opened fire on the four members of the federal police who were eating there. They all died," said the spokesman, who declined to be named.

He said one bodyguard was a woman.

The murder of Labastida, who had survived an attempt on his life in 2003, comes amid a rash of police killings as an army crackdown on drug cartels intensifies battles over turf and protection rings.

Last month one of Mexico's top federal police chiefs, Edgar Millan, was killed by hitmen linked to a powerful drug cartel from the Pacific state of Sinaloa as he returned to his apartment in Mexico City.

Some 500 police officers have been killed in drug violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched his military-backed anti-drug offensive in December 2006.

Calderon's deployment of some 25,000 troops and federal police across Mexico has intensified drug violence, and gangs appear to be targeting more top police officers in Mexico City, who were once thought to be untouchable. (Editing by Xavier Briand)

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