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December 2, 2008 6:34:50 AM CST

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Bloody Drug Wars Rock Mexican Town

Posted Apr 16, 08 4:25 PM CDT in World 

(Newser) – Bloody drug wars are ravaging the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez—across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas—despite desperate attempts at control by the government. After 210 lives were claimed by the battles between cartels in the first three months of 2008, President Felipe Calderon sent over 2,000 soldiers to the area in late March, the New York Times reports.

But those soldiers are so intimidated by the power of organized crime that they hide their faces with ski masks. Meanwhile, complex webs of alliances make it tough even to keep track of who's fighting whom. “A lot of these lines have been blurred since the first of the year,” says a US special agent in El Paso.

Source New York Times

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A forensic expert puts together a human skeleton at a cemetery in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday Dec. 5, 2007.   (AP Photo)
Army soldiers take away police agents for further questioning after army personnel arrived at a police station to check for weapons serial numbers and interviews with police officers in Ciudad Juarez.   (AP Photo)
Mexican soldiers disembark a military plane in Ciudad Juarez, northern Mexico, Friday, March 28, 2008.   (AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz)
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