Mexico clashes between police and armed drug gang leave 22 dead

But gang violence surged throughout Mexico, leaving 70,000 people in its wake when Calderon left office in December, and a powerful new cartel, the Knights Templar, emerged in Michoacan.

Osorio Chong has insisted that the strategy ordered by current President Enrique Pena Nieto will be different than his predecessor's, with a single command, close co-ordination between various authorities, greater use of intelligence assets, and a development programme.

Pena Nieto took office in December vowing to switch the focus towards reducing the levels of violence. He has since launched a crime prevention programme but he says troops will stay on the ground until the murder rate goes down.

Fed up with crime, vigilante groups have appeared in recent months and clashed with the Knights Templar cartel, notably in the Tierra Caliente region known as a hot spot of gang violence in the state of 4.3 million people.

Drug gangs have existed for decades in this western state, where they grow marijuana and opium poppies and produce synthetic drugs in makeshift labs before shipping them to the United States.

Edited for Telegraph.co.uk by Barney Henderson

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2f169760/sc/11/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Ccentralamericaandthecaribbean0Cmexico0C10A1990A260CMexico0Eclashes0Ebetween0Epolice0Eand0Earmed0Edrug0Egang0Eleave0E220Edead0Bhtml/story01.htm

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