MEXICO DEPLOYS 1500 EXTRA SOLDIERS TO BORDER CITY

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Mexico has deployed 1,500 more troops to the
northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, where homicides related to the
drug trade have surged in recent weeks.

The resurgent bloodshed raises doubts about the government's goal of
returning law enforcement and security duties to a reconstituted
Ciudad Juarez police force later this year.

The extra soldiers will begin patrolling the city Monday, said Enrique
Torres Valadez, the spokesman for the joint security operation of
soldiers and state police in Ciudad Juarez.

A total of 2,500 troops arrived Saturday night in the city across the
border from El Paso, Texas, Torres said, though about 1,000 of them
are relieving soldiers already on duty there.

Drug-related killings in Ciudad Juarez declined to about one per day
after the army sent some 5,000 troops there in March, bringing the
number of soldiers patrolling the streets to about 7,000.

As homicides declined, some troops withdrew. But last week, the
Chihuahua state attorney general's office said killings in Ciudad
Juarez have risen again to an average of eight to nine per day. State
officials haven't given a reason for the increase.

But Victor Clark, an drug-trafficking expert based in the northern
city of Tijuana, said it shows the troop deployment is not working.
While soldiers have stepped up street patrols, there has been little
intelligence work aimed at capturing the top drug lords in Ciudad
Juarez - or the corrupt politicians and businessmen who protect and
finance them.

"I see two wars, the visible and the invisible one. The visible one is
the dead that the media reports on every day, but the dead are just
cheap labor," said Clark, director of the Binational Center for Human
Rights in Tijuana. "The invisible one is ... the business class and
the politicians who really benefit from the millions that the drug
trade generates."

"The army had not carried out profound intelligence work," he added.
"In Juarez, they have not dared to touch that level of organized crime."

President Felipe Calderon has relied heavily on the military in his
frontal attack on drug trafficking, deploying more than 45,000 troops
across the country to crush brutal cartels.

The offensive has led to the capture of several drug kingpins, and
last month, federal agents took the battle to an unprecedented level
with the arrest of 10 mayors in western Michoacan state on suspicion
of protecting La Familia cartel.

So far, however, few high-profile arrests have taken place in Ciudad
Juarez, even though it had about 1,600 drug-related killings last
year, more than any other Mexican city. Through mid-June of this year,
there have been 800 killings in the city of about 1.3 million people.

Nationwide, more than 10,800 people have been killed in drug violence
since Calderon launched his offensive in December 2006.

With the deployment Saturday, 5,500 troops are now in Ciudad Juarez
with another 1,300 patrolling surrounding areas.

Local, state and federal forces will step up patrols in the most
dangerous parts of the city and increase checks of suspicious
vehicles, Chihuahua state Public Safety Secretary Victor Valencia said
last week.

Local police have been working alongside the army, which is scheduled
to begin withdrawing later this year.

The federal government is recruiting, equipping and training Ciudad
Juarez police with the goal of bringing the force to about 2,500 by
September and 3,000 by the end of the year.

But the force, which currently numbers 1,200 officers, has lost people
faster than it can replace them. More than 900 agents were fired,
resigned or retired last year.

Some were dismissed after failing psychological, background and other
checks as part of a campaign to clean up the department. But others
quit after watching colleagues gunned down by drug gangs or seeing
their names turn up on hit lists left in public.