Mexico Militarizes Border Town
The confrontation between the Mexican state and violent drug gangs is escalating, with the Mexican government moving to stomp out the bloody drug-related conflict in the border town of Ciudad Juarez. The first of some 7,000 troops have moved in to try to take control of the city.
The confrontation between the Mexican state and violent drug gangs is escalating, with the Mexican government moving to stomp out the bloody drug-related conflict in the border town of Ciudad Juarez. The first of some 7,000 troops have moved in to try to take control of the city.
Your support matters…The BBC:
More than 1,500 Mexican troops have moved into a city on the US border being fought over by rival drug gangs.
Soldiers moved into Ciudad Juarez to try to regain control of a city in which more than 2,000 people have been murdered over the past year.
Officials say they intend to have 7,000 troops and police in position by the end of the week.
Rival gangs are battling for control of the city, which is a key entry point for drug smuggling into the US.
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In addition to having produced 60,000 dead, 20,000 disappeared, hundreds of thousands displaced, wounded or on the run, and tens of thousands widowed or orphaned, Mexico’s drug war -- which seems to be off the radars of that country’s presidential candidates -- is a chain wrapped around the nation's considerable industrial potential.
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Scuffles between police and protesters erupted in Ciudad Juarez, the border town in Mexico that has been the scene of hundreds of drug-related murders, as Mexican President Felipe Calderon proposed new crime initiatives to a skeptical public.
In a move that further militarizes a bloody drug war that left 6,300 people dead in 2008 alone, the White House is sending FBI agents and equipment to the US-Mexico border to defend against the "spillover" of drug violence The relocation of federal agents to the U Southwest follows the dispatching of thousands of Mexican soldiers to combat drug cartels earlier this year.
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