MEXICO'S PRESIDENT VOWS NATIONWIDE ANTI-DRUG WAR

CULIACAN, Mexico -- With a city plagued by drugs and violence as a
backdrop, President Vicente Fox declared a nationwide war on narcotics
trafficking and organized crime Wednesday.

"Today we initiate this great crusade," Fox said in the capital of Sinaloa,
a Pacific coast state long considered the cradle of Mexico's extensive drug
trade. "I pledge a war without mercy."

Fox promised a complete overhaul of the nation's corrupt prison system and
strict adherence to a Mexican Supreme Court ruling last week that removed
the last barriers for extraditing Mexicans for trial in the United States.

His announcement came five days after the escape of Sinaloa's most
notorious drug boss, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, from a maximum-security
prison in the western state of Jalisco -- supposedly with the help of
bribed prison officials.

Fox said his government will do everything in its power to end corruption
in prisons. He did not say how it will be done.

The president was accompanied by his defense secretary, his attorney
general and Public Security Secretary Alejandro Gertz, a new Cabinet
secretary appointed to fight organized crime and drug trafficking.

Gertz said his office will begin official operations next week, but he did
not provide details.

One of the first pledges Fox made after taking office Dec. 1 was to launch
an all-out war against drugs and organized crime.

Last month, he sent 1,000 officers to fight drug-related violence in
Culiacan after Sinaloa Gov. Juan Millan said he could no longer fight the
scourge on his own.

In the past three years, Culiacan has experienced an average of 500
drug-related deaths annually; 14 people died in drug-related violence in
Sinaloa in the first three days of January alone.

Federal officials and anti-drug advocates in Sinaloa said traffickers are
already preparing a well-organized counteroffensive against Fox's crusade.

"They are going to regroup on several fronts," said Leonel Aguirre, one of
a group of Sinaloa lawyers who have spoken out against drug trafficking.
Aguirre's brother, also a member of the group, was killed by drug traffickers.

Drug bosses chased out of Culiacan by the federal police forces are
relocating and creating a well-armed outfit of followers trained with
military-style discipline, Aguirre and other drug-fighting activists said.

They said traffickers will continue to use bribes, and Fox acknowledged his
crusade "may be a bitter fight because of the perverse influence of dirty
money."

But the president vowed to combat that influence.

"We are striking a blow by unraveling these networks of complicity," he said.

Since Fox took office Dec. 1, authorities have arrested 489 people accused
of involvement in drug trafficking and removed 15 federal agents in the
northern state of Chihuahua who were alleged to be receiving payoffs from
drug traffickers, government officials said.