DRUG WAR LEAVES 17 BRAZILIANS DEAD

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- An escalating drug war has left 17 people dead in
the past three days, including four men shot to death Monday in a slum near
the capital, police said.

The four were believed to have links to drug traffickers in the slum known
as Juca's Hole, said police in Niteroi, across Guanabara Bay from Rio de
Janeiro.

On Sunday, police found 13 bodies in a parked minivan in the Vila da Penha
district on Rio's poor north side. The eight men and five women were shot
and stabbed to death in what police said was a vendetta between rival drug
gangs. Police believe the victims died late Saturday or early Sunday.

Police Chief Reginaldo Guilherme da Silva of Rio's 38th precinct said the
killings were carried out by a gang known as the "Third Command," which had
recently lost control of the drug trade at the Quitungo Hill slum to its
archrival, the "Red Command."

"Most of the victims were involved with trafficking," da Silva said. "They
were at a barbecue to commemorate the taking of Quitungo Hill by the Red
Command."

The two gangs and others, notably the "Friends of Friends," are warring for
control of the lucrative cocaine and marijuana trade that thrives in
hundreds of Rio shantytowns, known as favelas.

Armed with sophisticated automatic weapons smuggled into Brazil -- notably
the AR-15 assault rifle -- traffickers have turned the favelas into virtual
fortresses, terrorizing residents with deadly firefights.

On Monday, more than 100 police agents were deployed to the Quitungo favela
to try to avert more bloodshed.

The most recent massacres were especially embarrassing for Rio, which is
holding an international meeting of police chiefs to discuss ways to combat
crime.

As the meeting opened Sunday, Rio de Janeiro state Gov. Anthony Garotinho
said 70 percent of some 3,000 people arrested every month have ties to the
drug trade. He called on the federal government to come up with a plan to
curb the entry of illegal guns and drugs.

Josias Quintal, the state's public security secretary, said police efforts
were hopeless without a federal plan to deal with the problem at its source
- -- creating jobs and alternatives to easy drug money.

"This massacre is the result" of the ineffective approach, he said.