DRUG OPERATION TARGETS POLICE

Mexican Elite Soldiers Raid Stations In Search For Cartel Links

MEXICO CITY - Elite army soldiers took over police stations along
Mexico's border with Texas on Tuesday, disarming police, checking for
unregistered weapons and searching patrol cars and personal vehicles
for any items that might link the officers to drug cartels, according
to an official and the Mexican media.

Special-forces soldiers wearing ski masks took control of police
stations in Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Matamoros and other cities in
Tamaulipas state during the morning change of shifts, said an
official and local residents who spoke on condition of anonymity for
fear of retaliation.

The police officers were being held, pending verification of their weapons.

Mexico City newspaper Reforma put the total number at more than 500
officers in Tamaulipas whose weapons, vehicles and radios were
subject to revision.

The army last year conducted similar operations in the cities of
Tijuana and Monterrey, and in towns in the central and northern
states of Michoacan, Sinaloa and Sonora. In those raids, dozens of
police were arrested and brought to Mexico City for interrogation.

Soldiers also poured into Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, setting
up checkpoints throughout the city and reportedly carrying out
searches of homes for weapons. Some were stationed outside a hospital
where a high-ranking state law enforcement official was recuperating
from gunshot wounds after being attacked by suspected drug hit men.

Juarez authorities last week asked President Felipe Calderon for help
in quelling violence that's already killed 29 people in the city this year.

Since the beginning of the year, Mr. Calderon and the Mexican army
have begun an offensive on the Gulf drug cartel that is based along
the Tamaulipas-Texas border and against its rival, the Sinaloa
cartel, based in the northern state of the same name.

"In the second phase of operations, we are going to exploit the
intelligence information gathered during the first year of
operations," said Eduardo Cano, a spokesman for the federal Public
Security Ministry. A record 170 people have been killed in
drug-related violence in the first three weeks of this year,
according to the federal Public Security Ministry. The figure for all
of January 2007 was 176.

On Tuesday, elite police commandos seized an arms cache in safe
houses in southern Mexico City and arrested 11 people whom
authorities linked to the Sinaloa cartel, which authorities also call
the Pacific cartel. The operations in two capital neighborhoods came
after Monday's arrest of an alleged top cartel operative, Alfredo
Beltran Leyva, in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacan.

Among the weapons captured Tuesday were 20 military-style assault
rifles that in Mexico can be used only by the armed forces, a dozen
grenade launchers, 20 grenades and 40 bulletproof vests.

Also Tuesday, Mexico state police said they had detained four men in
Valle de Bravo, 90 miles west of Mexico City. Mexican newspaper El
Universal reported that the four were suspected Zetas, former
military men turned hit men for the Gulf cartel.

The Public Security Ministry said that in the last 10 days, it has
captured 50 members of the Gulf cartel, 11 members of the Sinaloa
cartel (plus Mr. Beltran Leyva) and four members of the Arellano
Felix cartel based in Tijuana.

Mexico City Bureau Chief Alfredo Corchado contributed to this report.