MEXICO POSTS ARE BLITZED AFTER ARREST IN DRUG WAR

MEXICO CITY -- It took six months of intelligence work for the police
to corner a man suspected of being one of western Mexico's top drug
bosses. But retaliation came swiftly, as his lieutenants struck
repeatedly in the two days after his arrest.

In several reprisal attacks across the western state of Michoacan
this weekend, gunmen attacked federal police posts and one military
base, killing three federal officers and two soldiers, the police said.

The attacks, which also injured 18 police officers, began after
federal officers arrested the man accused of drug charges, Arnoldo
Rueda Medina, early Saturday morning in the state capital, Morelia.
The police said Mr. Rueda was one of two top operations chiefs for
the drug cartel La Familia.

Michoacan, where pine-forested mountains in the east descend into a
barren sierra that drops down sharply before reaching the Pacific
Coast, has been a central battleground in President Felipe Calderon's
war against drug cartels.

Just days after Mr. Calderon took office in December 2006, he
initiated his war by sending troops into Michoacan, where he was born
and grew up.

An estimated 45,000 soldiers have now been sent around Mexico, mostly
in northern and western states. In May, Mr. Calderon again made
Michoacan the front line in a new phase of the drug war when federal
authorities arrested 10 mayors and 17 government and police
officials, accusing them of protecting drug cartels.

Security analysts have long argued that to wrest control of territory
from the cartels, the government needs to prosecute the politicians
who give protection.

Washington has supported Mr. Calderon's battle, beginning with the
Bush administration and continuing under President Obama. About $1.4
billion in anti-drug aid has been proposed for Mexico and Central
America. But the Mexican military's actions have also prompted a
growing number of complaints of human rights violations.

On Sunday, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch sent a letter to
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arguing that Mexico has
not met human rights standards attached to the release of 15 percent
of the funds.

Police officers arrested Mr. Rueda, and a 17-year-old caretaker,
before dawn on Saturday at a safe house at the edge of Morelia. He
had several houses and spent nights in them alternately.

Minutes after he was taken to the main federal police post in
Morelia, gunmen threw grenades and fired at the post with high-power
weapons in an effort to free him. Officers repelled the attack, and
the gunmen fled.

"The arrest was clean," said Gen. Rodolfo Cruz, a federal police
commander. "Afterwards, they tried to rescue him, and that was when
these clashes began."

On Saturday, gunmen attacked federal police barracks in Patzcuaro, a
colonial town outside the capital; a hotel where police are housed in
the farming town Apatzingan; a police barracks in the port of Lazaro
Cardenas; a police convoy outside the farming town Nueva Italia; and
a police base in Huetamo. Two other attacks took place in states just
beyond the state's border.

The federal police said that the attacks continued Sunday before dawn
when gunmen fired on a hotel housing police officers in Lazaro
Cardenas. At 9 a.m., men in a truck fired on a federal police patrol
in a nearby town. One gunman died and two were arrested, the federal
police said.

The three police officers killed Saturday were attacked on a road
near Zitacuaro, near a monarch butterfly reserve, where they had
responded to an accident. Gunmen drove by in a convoy and shot the officers.

Gunmen killed the two off-duty soldiers as they returned to their
barracks in the city of Zamora.

General Cruz said the gunmen exploited the element of surprise.

"The truck would pass, and they would spray bullets," he said. "They
wouldn't stop. They wouldn't engage. They just would shoot at the
installations, throw grenades, fire high-caliber weapons, and then
they would abandon their vehicles, disperse and disappear into the
crowd or into the mountains."