BRAZILIAN FORCES CLAIM VICTORY IN GANG HAVEN

RIO DE JANEIRO -- In a quick and decisive military sweep, Brazilian
security forces seized control of this city's most notorious slum on
Sunday, claiming victory in a weeklong battle against drug gangs that
has claimed dozens of lives.

By early afternoon the military police had raised the flags of Brazil
and Rio de Janeiro atop a building on the highest hill in the Alemao
shantytown complex, providing a rare moment of catharsis and
celebration in a decades-long battle to rid this city's violent slums
of drug gangs.

An air of calm and relief swept through the neighborhood, as
residents opened their windows and began walking the streets. Dozens
of children ran from their houses in shorts and bikinis to plunge
into a swimming pool that had belonged to a gang leader, even as the
police searched for drugs one floor below.

"We knew about this but we were never allowed to come in," said one
child, who identified himself as Alan, age 3, as he splashed about happily.

Residents congregated around televisions in bars and restaurants,
cheering on the police as they would their favorite soccer teams,
even as occasional gunfire peppered the sunny skies.

"Now the community is ours," Jovelino Ferreira, a 60-year-old pastor,
said, his eyes filling with tears. "This time it will be different.
We have to have faith. Many people have suffered here who didn't deserve to."

Drug gangs have stained the reputation of this seaside city and
contributed heavily to giving it one of the highest murder rates in
the world. For the past two years, the government has carried out an
ambitious campaign to pacify the most violent slums and regain
control of the city in advance of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic
Games. The police have since wrested more than three dozen
communities from criminal gangs, installing special community police
forces there.

As those communities were cleared, some gang members fled to Alemao,
a violent, sprawling slum complex with some 100,000 residents that
the city's police chief, Jose Mariano Beltrame, called "the heart of evil."

Last Sunday, the drug gangs unleashed a wave of attacks on city
streets that authorities said was in retaliation for the pacification
campaign. The battle was joined, and since then more than 42 people
have been killed in urban fighting between drug gangs and security
forces. The police have not said how many, if any, of their officers have died.

The authorities ordered what they said were hundreds of traffickers
hiding in Alemao to "surrender with arms in the air by sunset on
Friday." When the traffickers refused, more than 15 armored vehicles
blocked some 80 entrances to the neighborhood, barring residents from
returning to their homes.

At 8 a.m. Sunday, some 2,600 police officers and military personnel
moved in with tanks and personnel carriers. The police said they
confiscated 40 tons of marijuana, 50 assault rifles and 9
antiaircraft guns. There were no confirmed reports of any deaths.

"Today we are assured of the state's victory and the power of the
state," said Cmdr. Mario Sergio Duarte of the military police, who
led the operation.

But questions remained about how effective the raid would be and how
long the authorities could maintain control of Alemao.

The police said they detained 20 people on Sunday, but they had
entered the slum with more than 100 arrest warrants to execute.

Residents said that many of the criminals had left days before the
operation disguised as clerks in dress clothes and walking alongside
women and children.

"They are all gone now, so we are not so scared," said Suelen de
Oliveira, 21, a student.

It was also unclear how long the military and the police planned to
stay, or how long they could.

Mr. Beltrame, Rio's security secretary and the architect of the
pacification program, has previously said that he did not expect to
have enough officers to occupy either Alemao or Rocinha, another
violent slum overhanging the city's affluent South Zone, until next year.

At a news conference on Sunday evening, he said the police would
continue to occupy Alemao but did not respond to questions about when
or whether a pacification force would be installed there. "Let's take
this step by step," he said.

Still, the nation has been captivated by the drama here like no other
event since the World Cup last summer.

For much of last week, Brazilian television provided nearly
round-the-clock coverage of the confrontations, and newspapers have
been packed with pages of coverage every day. A news helicopter
beamed images on Sunday of a Mass at the Christ the Redeemer statue,
an iconic Rio symbol, where hundreds of residents and tourists prayed
for the security forces.

Mr. Beltrame has said that the political will to fight back against
the gangs was long overdue. For decades, a lack of day-to-day police
presence in the slums allowed gangs to control them like city-states,
deploying heavy weapons to protect their drug trafficking operations.
Gang leaders have dispensed city services while patrolling the slums
with rifles hanging off their backs.

Meanwhile, corrupt politicians and police officers took bribes and
kickbacks to look the other way. Two of Mr. Beltrame's predecessors
as police chief, as well as Rio's former governor, were convicted in
August of charges including corruption and money laundering.

The citizens who rallied behind the security forces seemed to agree
that enough was enough.

Sergio Cabral, the governor of Rio State, was resoundingly re-elected
in October vowing to deepen the pacification program and to break the
grip of the "parallel power" of the drug gangs.

But even as residents celebrated, Mr. Beltrame warned against
overstating the victory.

"This is a battle within a bigger war," he said. "We won a battle,
but we did not win the war yet. "The mission will continue."