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Eliseo Barron, a police reporter for national daily newspaper Milenio, was abducted by suspected drug hitmen and then killed - Source: Reuters -
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Mexican troops rounded up 10 mayors and a string of police
chiefs suspected of links to drug gangs in a western state, one of
the biggest single corruption sweeps in the government's drug
war.
Soldiers burst into police stations and town halls to arrest 27
public officials in Michoacan, the home state of President Felipe
Calderon and the place he launched his army-led assault on drug
cartels in late 2006.
The officials included a judge and a former police chief who is an
aide to the state governor.
The attorney general's office said all were suspected of links
to drug smugglers.
Calderon has staked his presidency on crushing drug gangs whose
turf wars have killed some 2,300 people so far this year, apace
with 6,300 drug murders in 2008.
Some 45,000 troops and federal police have been deployed across
the country.
In the northwestern state of Durango, where a burst of cartel
killings have shaken up formerly quiet towns, the body was found of
a Mexican crime reporter believed murdered by drug hitmen.
Durango is part of the home territory of top drug fugitive Joaquin
"Shorty" Guzman, who is fighting a Michoacan cartel known as "La
Familia" (The Family) for control of the area.
Small towns in marijuana-growing Michoacan are under siege from
rival cartels who want control of rural outposts along smuggling
corridors, stretching the army in sparsely inhabited mountains that
hide drug plantations and laboratories.
Local officials and police are often bribed or terrorized into
helping the well-armed gangs that move billions of dollars of
narcotics into the United States every year.
The town of Uruapan, where the mayor was arrested, made headlines
early in the drug war in 2006 when hitmen dumped five human heads
on the dance floor of a bar.
US President Barack Obama praised Calderon's campaign in a visit to
Mexico in April and US officials say escalating violence is a sign
of drug gangs' weakness.
But corrupt police and officials are undermining the government's
efforts and many security analysts predict a long fight before the
cartels' power is noticeably diminished.
In Durango, the state attorney general's office said armed, hooded
men burst into the home of Eliseo Barron, a police reporter for the
national daily Milenio, and abducted him on Monday night in the
north-western town of Gomez Palacio.
"His body was found naked and with bullet wounds in an irrigation
ditch," said Michoacan's deputy attorney general, Noel Diaz.
Milenio also confirmed Barron's killing, though it was not clear
why he was targeted.
Mexican journalists reporting on drug gangs are often harassed by
traffickers and serious attacks appear to be increasing.
Another journalist, Carlos Ortega, was shot dead this month in
Durango as he investigated police corruption.
Since 2006, at least 17 journalists have been killed in Mexico,
making it one of the deadliest countries for the media, according
to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
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