Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jul 2009
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Elisabeth Malkin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon

MEXICO POSTS ARE BLITZED AFTER ARREST IN DRUG WAR

MEXICO CITY -- It took six months of intelligence work for the police 
to corner a man suspected of being one of western Mexico's top drug 
bosses. But retaliation came swiftly, as his lieutenants struck 
repeatedly in the two days after his arrest.

In several reprisal attacks across the western state of Michoacan 
this weekend, gunmen attacked federal police posts and one military 
base, killing three federal officers and two soldiers, the police said.

The attacks, which also injured 18 police officers, began after 
federal officers arrested the man accused of drug charges, Arnoldo 
Rueda Medina, early Saturday morning in the state capital, Morelia. 
The police said Mr. Rueda was one of two top operations chiefs for 
the drug cartel La Familia.

Michoacan, where pine-forested mountains in the east descend into a 
barren sierra that drops down sharply before reaching the Pacific 
Coast, has been a central battleground in President Felipe Calderon's 
war against drug cartels.

Just days after Mr. Calderon took office in December 2006, he 
initiated his war by sending troops into Michoacan, where he was born 
and grew up.

An estimated 45,000 soldiers have now been sent around Mexico, mostly 
in northern and western states. In May, Mr. Calderon again made 
Michoacan the front line in a new phase of the drug war when federal 
authorities arrested 10 mayors and 17 government and police 
officials, accusing them of protecting drug cartels.

Security analysts have long argued that to wrest control of territory 
from the cartels, the government needs to prosecute the politicians 
who give protection.

Washington has supported Mr. Calderon's battle, beginning with the 
Bush administration and continuing under President Obama. About $1.4 
billion in anti-drug aid has been proposed for Mexico and Central 
America. But the Mexican military's actions have also prompted a 
growing number of complaints of human rights violations.

On Sunday, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch sent a letter to 
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arguing that Mexico has 
not met human rights standards attached to the release of 15 percent 
of the funds.

Police officers arrested Mr. Rueda, and a 17-year-old caretaker, 
before dawn on Saturday at a safe house at the edge of Morelia. He 
had several houses and spent nights in them alternately.

Minutes after he was taken to the main federal police post in 
Morelia, gunmen threw grenades and fired at the post with high-power 
weapons in an effort to free him. Officers repelled the attack, and 
the gunmen fled.

"The arrest was clean," said Gen. Rodolfo Cruz, a federal police 
commander. "Afterwards, they tried to rescue him, and that was when 
these clashes began."

On Saturday, gunmen attacked federal police barracks in Patzcuaro, a 
colonial town outside the capital; a hotel where police are housed in 
the farming town Apatzingan; a police barracks in the port of Lazaro 
Cardenas; a police convoy outside the farming town Nueva Italia; and 
a police base in Huetamo. Two other attacks took place in states just 
beyond the state's border.

The federal police said that the attacks continued Sunday before dawn 
when gunmen fired on a hotel housing police officers in Lazaro 
Cardenas. At 9 a.m., men in a truck fired on a federal police patrol 
in a nearby town. One gunman died and two were arrested, the federal 
police said.

The three police officers killed Saturday were attacked on a road 
near Zitacuaro, near a monarch butterfly reserve, where they had 
responded to an accident. Gunmen drove by in a convoy and shot the officers.

Gunmen killed the two off-duty soldiers as they returned to their 
barracks in the city of Zamora.

General Cruz said the gunmen exploited the element of surprise.

"The truck would pass, and they would spray bullets," he said. "They 
wouldn't stop. They wouldn't engage. They just would shoot at the 
installations, throw grenades, fire high-caliber weapons, and then 
they would abandon their vehicles, disperse and disappear into the 
crowd or into the mountains." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake