Mexico may be entering new phase in drug war

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‘To strike back at narcotics traffickers suspected of ordering the assassination of Mexico’s top drug cop, President Felipe Calderon dispatched 2,000 army troops and federal police to the gang’s home base, the western state of Sinaloa,’ writes Times Mexico City bureau chief Héctor Tobar.

‘The traffickers struck back themselves with a paramilitary-style ambush of a police station, and taunted the newly arrived troops with mocking signs on the streets.’

With Mexico’s border cities and drug-trafficking routes exploding in violence, and the recent assassinations of top police officials, some believe that Mexico ‘has opened a dangerous new phase in the country’s drug war.’

Officials insist that the drug cartels are resorting to more extreme violence out of desperation, because of the effectiveness of the government’s crackdown. ‘We have damaged their financial and logistical operations,’ Calderon said today. ‘And this has apparently provoked these criminal acts of desperation in which they seek to recover the protected spaces they’ve lost.’

But the killings also indicate the continuing power and reach of the cartels.