TEXAS BORDER IS NEXT IN WAR AGAINST CARTELS

MEXICO CITY -- Ratcheting up its fight against drug cartels, the
federal government announced Sunday that about 3,300 military
personnel and police will be deployed to two besieged states
bordering South Texas.

The push comes as part of President Felipe Calderon's continued use
of the military to take on gangs he contends threaten to destabilize
the nation.

"The Mexican nation is stronger than the criminals operating in our
country," Interior Minister Francisco Javier Ramirez Acunasaid.

"We have started an all-out fight, unlike any in history, against
organized crime," said Ramirez, whose duties include domestic security.

The operation will include 2,035 soldiers, 750 sailors and 516
police, according to the Calderon administration.

They are to be backed by trucks, patrol boats, airplanes and helicopters.

It will focus on the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, which hug
the Texas border from the Gulf of Mexico to just west of Laredo, at
the end of Interstate 35.

Monterrey, Nuevo Leon's state capital, has long been a relatively
safe city, where residents pride themselves on prosperity.

But this year has been plagued by violence, including the slayings of
seven police officers, including a commander.

Last week, a 2-year-old girl was critically injured in a daylight
shooting attributed to organized crime.

Soldiers have already set up roadside checkpoints in and around
Monterrey as they search for weapons and drugs.

The federal government said it was responding to a call for help by
state governors, who have been helpless to stop the violence.

Calderon, who took office Dec. 1, promised that the government will
use all of its resources to take on the cartels, which primarily
traffic in cocaine and marijuana.

He's already deployed thousands of troops to other parts of the
country, including Tijuana, Acapulco and his home state of Michoacan.

Although they made dozens of arrests, burned drug crops, confiscated
weapons and inspected tens of thousands of people, authorities
working for Calderon have not made any major cocaine seizures or
arrested major players.

Last month, Calderon sent another type of warning to battling drug
gangs by extraditing some of their imprisoned leaders to the United
States to face justice.

Among them were Osiel Cardenas Guillen of the Gulf cartel and Hector
"El Guero" Palma of the Sinaloa cartel.

The two syndicates are in a bloody and protracted turf war for
several areas, including the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo corridor, which has
seen a dramatic increase in the amount of commercial-truck traffic.

The State Department cautioned Americans to be careful traveling
anywhere in Mexico, especially in places such as Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.