Mexico is sending up to 5,000 new troops and federal police to Ciudad Juarez, the country's most violent city, where authority is on the verge of collapse in a violent war between drug gangs aided by corrupt police. The army said Thursday the new deployment could take the number of soldiers and federal police to over 7,000 in the city across the border from the El Paso, Texas. So far this month, gunmen from criminal gangs have killed 250 people in Ciudad Juarez, where a meeting of state cabinet members Wednesday received bomb threats. “In yesterday's meeting, [government officials] talked about sending 5,000 troops and police to Ciudad Juarez,” said army spokesman Enrique Torres. “They are expected to arrive in the next few weeks.” He said there are currently about 2,000 troops and 425 federal police in the city, which has a population of 1.6 million. Drug-trade analysts say those soldiers risk being overwhelmed by brutal narcotics traffickers fighting over smuggling routes into the United States. Those criminal gangs often buy the cooperation of corrupt city and state police. President Felipe Calderon has deployed 45,000 soldiers across northern Mexico to try to defeat drug gangs, and clashes between rival cartels and security forces killed about 6,000 people last year. The United States is concerned the violence could spill over the border, escalating the conflict.
