| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico: President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday called for shared US responsibility in the fight against Mexico's drug gangs, after US consulate-linked killings in the violent city of Ciudad Juarez.
"It is indispensable that the fight against organized crime is fully assumed as a shared responsibility between the United States and Mexico... with each on its territory and in its field of competence," Calderon said on a visit to the border city across from El Paso, Texas.
Calderon's third visit this year to Mexico's most violent city followed the high-profile murders of an American employee of the US consulate, her husband, and the husband of a Mexican consular employee in a separate attack at the weekend.
Accompanied by US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, the Mexican leader once again underlined the key role of US drug consumption and weapons trafficking in supporting the Mexican gangs.
Aztec-inspired gang spreads fear along US-Mexico border
The Obama administration has acknowledged the US role in Mexico's violence and US officials have targeted Mexican drug gangs in the United States in recent years.
Calderon was met with protests from scores of residents frustrated by almost daily attacks, extortion and kidnappings which plague Ciudad Juarez despite the deployment of some 6,000 troops in the city of some 1.3 million.
Mexican authorities blamed the latest murders on "the Aztecas," hitmen linked to the powerful Juarez drug gang, as US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents joined investigations there.
The United States already shares technical expertise and has provided military equipment to Mexico under the US$1.3-billion Merida Initiative to fight organized crime.
Ciudad Juarez is at the heart of Calderon's controversial clampdown on organized crime, which has seen some 50,000 troops deployed countrywide.
More than 15,000 people have died in the surge of drug-related violence since Calderon took office at the end of 2006, including more than 2,600 last year alone in Ciudad Juarez.
Investigators said it was still unclear why the US consulate-linked victims were singled out by hit teams who ambushed the two family groups just minutes apart Saturday after they left a birthday party.
The victims were identified as Lesley Enriquez, an American working at the consulate; her American husband, Arthur Redelfs; and Jorge Alberto Salcido, the Mexican husband of another consular employee.
Police on Monday located the charred van that they believed was used by the killers.
The broad daylight attacks put Ciudad Juarez under a heightened glare of attention only two months after the gruesome massacre on January 31 of 15 youths at a party there.
After those killings, Calderon launched an ambitious social project in a bid to restore some normalcy to the city from which hundreds have fled in recent months.
Last weekend, suspected drug attacks claimed more than 100 lives across Mexico. Among the hardest hit areas was the western Guerrero state, home to the legendary resort of Acapulco, and a key transit point for drug trafficking.
Canada on Tuesday followed the US State Department by updating warnings against travel to northern Mexico.
- AFP/sc
|
