MEXICO CRACKING DOWN ON DRUG STRONGHOLD

Mexican Troops And Police Officers Spread Out In An Area Of Western
Mexico Controlled By Drug Gangs With The Goal Of 'Rconquering Territory.'

APATZINGAN, Mexico - Helicopters clattered over remote mountaintops
while soldiers set up checkpoints Tuesday in western Mexico, a region
President Felipe Calderon has vowed to take back from smugglers
challenging authorities with beheadings and large-scale drug production.

Soldiers were ordered to set fire to marijuana and opium fields and
round up traffickers in Michoacan -- Calderon's home state. Navy
ships also were patrolling the state's Lazaro Cardenas port, a hub
for drugs arriving from Central America and Colombia on their way to
the United States.

Cornelio Casio, one of several generals overseeing the operation
begun Monday, said 6,500 soldiers and federal police were fanning out
across the state.

"We aren't going to lose any time," he said. "We are completely
focused on this war."

The campaign follows earlier crackdowns by Mexican presidents who
ordered mass firings of corrupt police, revamped courts, sent
thousands of troops to battle traffickers and accelerated drug
seizures -- without making much of a dent on the quantity of
narcotics crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

In an interview Tuesday with the Televisa television network,
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said the operation was aimed at
"reconquering territory" controlled by drug gangs. "It's not just a
war against drug lords," he said. "It's a war against the entire
criminal structure."

Medina Mora acknowledged that drug lords will likely just find
another stronghold, saying: "It's a complicated war, but it is a war
we can win."

Calderon brushed aside concerns the crackdown could lead to human
rights violations and claim innocent victims. "It's about recovering
the calm, day-to-day life of Mexicans who live in the state,"
Calderon said at an event early Tuesday.

He took office on Dec. 1 promising to fight the execution-style
killings, corrupt police and openly defiant gangs that plagued former
President Vicente Fox's six years in office. Calderon has budgeted
more funds for law enforcement and appointed a hard-line interior
secretary, in charge of domestic security, Francisco Ramirez Acuna.

On Tuesday, Calderon met with federal lawmakers and urged them to
support his program. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza has repeatedly
expressed concern about the rising violence, some of which has
spilled over into the United States, and the U.S. State Department
has warned U.S. citizens about travel to Mexico.

Warring cartels have killed at least 2,000 people this year and
forced Fox to send troops into the bloody border city of Nuevo
Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, and the beach resort of Acapulco.

But those efforts failed to deter traffickers, who have left human
heads outside government offices accompanied by written warnings. One
recent message in Michoacan read: "See. Hear. Shut Up. If you want to
stay alive."