Mexico Cracks Down on Drug Cartels (2/2)

President Bush has asked the US Congress to provide Mexico with close to one and a half billion dollars in assistance to help fight the drug cartels.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a major offensive against the criminal organizations shortly after taking office in December 2006. The going has been tough for both the law enforcement groups and the general public as rival gangs fight the police and each other. Drug violence claimed more than 2,500 lives in Mexico last year. Most of the violence has been in the border region, where both drug and human smuggling gangs operate, often with the protection of local police.

In an effort to crack down on violence and police corruption, Mexican military units went into the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros Tuesday, disarming local police and carrying out investigations.

The Mexican army carried out operations last week on the western end of the border, in the city of Tijuana, where soldiers and federal police engaged in a three-hour gun battle last Thursday that ended with the death of one gunman and the wounding of four police officers. Police detained five alleged drug cartel gunmen in the raid.

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布什总统要求美国国会向墨西哥提供近15亿美元的资助以辅助他们打击贩毒集团。

自2006年12月墨西哥总统费利佩•卡尔德龙上任后不久，其就开始进行大规模打击犯罪集团的行动。对执法部门和普通大众而言这项行动都是艰难的，因为罪犯和警察之间互相开火。去年，在墨西哥发生的毒品暴力导致2500人死亡。多数暴力事件发生于同时存在毒品和人口走私交易的边境地区，而通常这些（违法行为）都受到当地警察的保护。

为了努力打击暴力和警察腐败，墨西哥军方周二进驻边境城市新拉莱多（Nuevo Laredo）、雷诺萨（Reynosa）和马塔莫罗斯（Matamoros），没收当地警察的武器并开始对其进行调查。

上周，墨西哥军队开始在西部边境尽头城市提华纳执勤，上周四这里的士兵和联邦警察经历了一场长达3小时的枪战，并以一名持枪歹徒死亡和四名警察受伤而告终。在搜捕中，警察捕获了五名疑为贩毒集团成员的持枪歹徒。