The state and federal governments have prepared contingency plans to deal with spillover violence from across the border as Mexican troops clash with ruthless drug cartels terrorizing Mexico.
| Mexico's two largest drug cartels have fielded a combined army of 100,000 foot soldiers to battle not just government forces but also one another. |
A crackdown by Mexican President Felipe Calderon has turned Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, into a war zone as federal troops battle feuding cartels.
Thousands of soldiers and agents have surged into the border city in the government's latest effort to free Mexican citizens from a daily spectacle of assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings ordered by rival drug czars.
Mexico's active-duty armed | The Mexican drug wars claimed more than 5,700 lives in Mexico in 2008. About a half-dozen cartels account for $27-billion-a-year through the smuggling of drugs and human cargo. |
forces number more than 130,000 and are being aggressively used to combat the cartels. But U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters last week that Mexico's two largest drug cartels have fielded a combined army of 100,000 foot soldiers to battle not just government forces but also one another.
The state's contingency plan, which has not been released publicly, envisions scenarios of violence, such as kidnappings or a takeover by hit squads, with a corresponding response by law enforcement, McCraw said.
The Mexican drug wars claimed more than 5,700 lives in Mexico in 2008, including 1,600 in Juarez, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels are battling for supremacy. About a half-dozen cartels are rooted in Mexico, accounting for an estimated $27-billion-a-year business through the smuggling of drugs and human cargo. |