MEXICO'S PRESIDENT PROMISES NO RESPITE IN WAR ON DRUG GANGS

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Felipe Calderon said there will be
"no truce or quarter" in his war on drug gangs after the killing of
seven law enforcement officials in an apparent attempt to intimidate
the federal government.

Flanked by the commanders of the army, navy and air force, Calderon
told troops at a military base on Saturday that the government will
not be strong-armed by organized crime.

"We are not going to surrender, neither from provocation nor attacks
on the safety of Mexicans," Calderon said. "We will give no truce or
quarter to the enemies of Mexico."

Tuesday morning, more than a dozen armed men killed five agents and
two secretaries in simultaneous attacks on two offices of the state
attorney general in Acapulco.

The attackers were dressed in military uniforms and pretended to be
conducting a weapons check, asking the agents to hand over their
rifles before opening fire.

Police later found a note in a van thought to be used in the attack
with the defiant message: "We could give a damn about the federal
government, and this is proof" - an apparent reference to the
shootings. The vehicle was parked outside a house packed with
automatic rifles and military uniforms.

Calderon, a career politician in the conservative National Action
Party, narrowly won election last year on promises to smash drug
gangs blamed for killing more than 2,000 people in 2006, many in
execution-style killings and gruesome beheadings.

Since taking power in December, the president has sent more than
24,000 soldiers and federal police to areas ravaged by drug violence,
including 7,000 to Acapulco's Pacific state of Guerrero.

He also has extradited four accused drug kingpins to the United
States, where they could be given life sentences in high-security prisons.

"I instruct you to persevere until victory is achieved," he told the
troops Saturday. "New pages of glory will be written."

Calderon's position has won him praise from Washington, with U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration chief Karen Tandy describing his
initiative as "an enormous leap forward."

The country's drug gangs are thought to earn more than $10 billion a
year smuggling Mexican-made heroin, marijuana and amphetamines and
Colombian cocaine into the United States.

Lawmakers from Mexico's opposition Democratic Revolution Party helped
draft a bill to legalize possession of small amounts of cocaine,
heroin and marijuana, which Mexico's Congress approved last year.

However, former President Vicente Fox refused to sign the bill after
an outcry from U.S. officials.