3,000 soldiers, federal police to fight drug crime in Tijuana

By Luis Perez
Associated Press
Jan. 3, 2007 07:38 AM

TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexico is sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight drug gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has become a major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine entering the United States.

The offensive expands a crackdown on organized crime by President Felipe Calderon, who sent 7,000 troops to his home state of Michoacan immediately after taking office on Dec. 1.

"We will carry out all the necessary actions to retake every region of national territory," Mexican Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez Acuna said in a news conference Tuesday. "We will not allow any state to be a hostage of drug traffickers or organized crime."

The Tijuana force consists of 2,620 soldiers, 162 marines and 510 federal police, and will be backed by 28 boats, 21 planes and nine helicopters, Ramirez Acuna said.

The force will hunt down suspected traffickers, patrol the coast and man checkpoints in a city that lies across the border from San Diego and is one of the world's busiest border crossings. It is a transshipment point for cocaine heading north from Colombia, as well as locally produced methamphetamine and marijuana.