PRESIDENT FOX LAUNCHES OFFENSIVE AGAINST DRUGS

With the drug- and violence-plagued city of Culiacan as a backdrop,
President Vicente Fox on Wednesday declared a nationwide war on narcotics
trafficking and organized crime.

"Today we initiate this great crusade," Fox said in the capital of Sinaloa,
a Pacific coast state 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 one of Sinaloa's drug
bosses, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, from a maximum-security prison in the
western state of Jalisco -- allegedly with the help of bribed prison officials.