Mexico launches drugs crackdown

Federal troops have been patrolling the streets

Thousands of Mexican troops are patrolling the streets in Michoacan state in an anti-drug trafficking drive ordered by President Felipe Calderon.

Soldiers have also destroyed several marijuana and opium plantations.

It is estimated that fighting between rival drug gangs has claimed the lives of more than 500 people this year in the western state.

Michoacan has become a key air and sea transit point for cocaine, amphetamines and heroin bound for the US.

Correspondents say the move to curb the violence in his home state is President Calderon's first major initiative since his inauguration earlier this month.

'Bad to worse'

On Monday the president ordered the deployment of around 4,000 troops to tackle lawlessness and drug violence in the state.

On Tuesday, navy ships patrolled the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas and federal police and soldiers in armoured vehicles searched cars at checkpoints, witnesses said.

This is just for the cameras Hernan Hijano

Convenience store owner, Alejandro Arias, who had paid protection money to local drug barons, said it had been a terrible year.

"It's gone from bad to worse," he told the Associated Press news agency.

"But you have to have hope," he said. "We don't have anything else."

However, Hernan Hijano, a computer technician in the city of Morelia, said: "when the soldiers leave, the problems will continue."

"This is just for the cameras," he added.

Turf war

Speaking at an event earlier on Tuesday, Mr Calderon said the deployment was "about recovering the calm, day-to-day life of Mexicans who live in the state."

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told the Televisa network that the operation was aimed at "reconquering territory" controlled by drug gangs.

"It's not just a war against drug lords," he said, adding: "It's a war against the entire criminal structure."

In September, gunmen burst into a bar in Uruapan city in the state, and flung five human heads onto a crowded dance floor, in an apparent warning to a rival drug gang.