TROOPS, POLICE DISPATCHED TO DRUG-PLAGUED MEXICAN STATE

MEXICO CITY -- More than 5,000 Mexican soldiers and federal police
officers swept into the troubled state of Michoacan on Monday hoping
to quell a long, barbaric war between rival drug cartels.

The crackdown was ordered by new Mexican President Felipe Calderon,
who took office Dec. 1 with promises that he would get tough on
cartels suspected of more than 2,000 killings this year, including a
series of gruesome beheadings in Michoacan, Calderon's home state.

Federal forces, backed by dozens of military aircraft, arrested at
least 13 alleged drug traffickers in the first hours of the operation
and discovered more than 1,000 marijuana plants.

"The battle against organized crime is just beginning," Calderon's
interior minister, Francisco Ramirez Acuna, said Monday during a news
conference. "It is a fight that will take time."

The crackdown in the western state has been dubbed "Joint Operation
Michoacan" because it involves federal police, troops from the Mexican
navy and army, federal investigative agents and federal
prosecutors.

Mexico's drug problems have risen to crisis levels as the country's
cartels have grown in size and strength in the past five years.
Officials here have been under increasing pressure from the United
States to contain cartels whose influence stretches across the border.
Calderon also is under pressure to restore order and the rule of law
after several bombings in Mexico City and months of gridlock-producing
protests organized by his election opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador, who has accused Calderon of electoral fraud.

The president is now waging two major military-style battles. In
addition to the operation in Michoacan, he is overseeing the
occupation of the southern city of Oaxaca, where protesters have been
demanding the ouster of the state governor for the past six months.

Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, sent federal police to Oaxaca in
October. But Calderon has proved even more aggressive there. Last
week, federal agents arrested the top protest leader, Flavio Sosa, a
move that drew sharp criticism from human rights activists.

Mexican forces also have raided the offices of local police in Oaxaca.
They are investigating whether Oaxacan police officers may be
responsible for the killings of more than a dozen protesters and Brad
Will, an American freelance journalist and activist.