Agents fail to quell drug-related crime
2/18/2006
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (AP) - The weary residents of this border city at the center of an escalating drug war hoped hundreds of federal agents would end the violence that last year killed 181 people.
But drug-related crime has not let up since the "federales" arrived, and 31 people have been killed so far this year, a significant increase from the same time last year.
Eight months after President Vicente Fox sent soldiers and federal agents to take back the city from drug traffickers, the killings in Nuevo Laredo continue and brazen attacks remain commonplace. Plans to gradually withdraw federal agents have been put on hold, and police are having trouble recruiting new officers.
In the latest attacks, heavily armed men forced their way into a hospital Tuesday and killed a teenager receiving treatment after surviving an earlier attempt on his life.
A week before, two men wearing ski masks tossed grenades and opened fire inside the office of El Manana newspaper, seriously wounding a reporter.
Link
2/18/2006
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (AP) - The weary residents of this border city at the center of an escalating drug war hoped hundreds of federal agents would end the violence that last year killed 181 people.
But drug-related crime has not let up since the "federales" arrived, and 31 people have been killed so far this year, a significant increase from the same time last year.
Eight months after President Vicente Fox sent soldiers and federal agents to take back the city from drug traffickers, the killings in Nuevo Laredo continue and brazen attacks remain commonplace. Plans to gradually withdraw federal agents have been put on hold, and police are having trouble recruiting new officers.
In the latest attacks, heavily armed men forced their way into a hospital Tuesday and killed a teenager receiving treatment after surviving an earlier attempt on his life.
A week before, two men wearing ski masks tossed grenades and opened fire inside the office of El Manana newspaper, seriously wounding a reporter.
Link
Comment