Beating Sinaloa drug gangs key for Mexico, US says
Source: Reuters
(Updates with police deaths in central Mexico) By Robin Emmott and Greg Brosnan MEXICO CITY, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Mexico's new President Felipe Calderon has made a strong start in his battle against drug cartels but must crush thriving traffickers on the Pacific coast to win the war, a senior U.S. anti-drug official said. Calderon has sent thousands of troops against drug gangs who killed 2,000 people in feuds last year and extradited Osiel Cardenas, the jailed leader of the powerful Gulf Cartel to the United States. But an alliance of drug gangs based on Mexico's western coast, which U.S. officials call "the Sinaloa consortium," is so far untouched by the crackdown, according to the official. "Breaking up the Sinaloa consortium is a priority. ... They're not behind bars and they need to be," he said in an interview this week. He asked not to be named to avoid retaliation from the cartels. Unlike rival cartels which work alone, the Sinaloans share trafficking routes, transport, cocaine sources, and hit men, effectively controlling towns and villages across the state. Sinaloa, home to the popular beach resort of Mazatlan, has a long Pacific coastline and is an ideal base for traffickers. The alliance also uses the narrow Sea of Cortez between Mexico's mainland and the Baja California peninsula to ferry South American cocaine to the U.S. border. Mexico said on Thursday it would tackle drug smuggling wherever it raised its head. "All the important drug-trafficking areas will form part of this fight," Roberto Campa, a senior official at the public security ministry, told foreign journalists. In a sign that drug violence is spreading in Mexico, four police officers were shot dead in the normally tranquil colonial city of Aguascalientes in central Mexico on Thursday after a shoot-out with cartel hit men, local authorities said. MOST WANTED MAN The main Sinaloan kingpin is Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the country's most wanted man who escaped from a maximum-security jail in a laundry van in 2001 and has since eluded massive army and police searches for him. He is the arch-enemy of Cardenas, who was sent to Texas in January to face charges of trafficking cocaine and marijuana. The U.S. official praised Calderon's hard-line stance, even though cartel hit men dressed as soldiers killed seven people in two daring attacks last week in Acapulco. "Calderon is sending a very strong message that the days are over when cartel leaders could rule the streets of a city," he said. The government, which took office on Dec. 1, has deployed thousands of soldiers to Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa states -- the so-called Golden Triangle of drug trafficking -- as well as to the southern hot spot states of Guerrero and Michoacan. Soldiers have burned marijuana plantations, shut down methamphetamine labs and seized cocaine hauls destined for the United States -- the main market for South American cocaine. The U.S. government believes Mexico has effectively dismantled the once strong Arellano-Felix cartel in Tijuana in recent years, the official said. But he warned the assault on the cartels could also lead to fresh violence. "Mexico could see a backlash and certainly one shouldn't be surprised. It would be reasonable to see territorial disputes and to see bloodshed," the official said, adding he was confident Mexico could handle the situation. "I think the Mexican police and army have a formidable capacity to confront anything narco organized crime can throw at them," he added. (Additional reporting by Alistair Bell)
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