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Gunmen kill top Mexican policemen | |
(about 18 hours later) | |
Three top Mexican police officials have been shot dead in as many days while the country's fight against drug-trafficking continues. | |
Assailants sprayed the car of the deputy police chief of the border city of Ciudad Juarez on Saturday, killing Juan Antonio Roman Garcia. | |
The head of Mexico City's anti-kidnap unit was killed on Friday. | |
On Thursday, the director of national police operations against drug traffickers was shot dead. | |
Speaking before the latest killing, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said such attacks would not deter his efforts to continue his government's campaign against drug-trafficking cartels. | |
"We have to come together to confront this evil, we Mexicans have to definitively and categorically say 'That's enough!'," he said at a police memorial service. | |
"We can't accept this situation. We have to take back our streets." | |
'City in mourning' | |
Mr Garcia was shot dead outside his home in Ciudad Juarez, which borders Texas. | |
President Calderon was at a memorial to dead police officers this week | |
His name had appeared at the top of a "hit list" left at a monument for fallen police officers a few months earlier. | |
"His death has plunged the city into mourning because he was an exemplary officer with an impeccable 20-year record who fulfilled his duties until his last breath, despite the dangers," said the city's mayor, Jose Reyes Ferriz. | |
All police officers have been ordered to take added precautions, he added. | |
Mexico City anti-kidnap chief Esteban Robles died after being shot several times outside his home on Friday. | |
The previous day, the director of national police operations against drug traffickers, Edgar Millan Gomez, was shot dead outside his home in the capital. | |
Earlier in the week, another senior policeman in Ciudad Juarez, Saul Pena, was gunned down as he left police headquarters. | |
Retaliatory attacks | Retaliatory attacks |
Mexico has seen a surge in drug-related killings recently. | |
Last year, 2,500 people were killed while so far this year, about 1,100 people have been killed. | |
President Calderon has sent nearly 30,000 soldiers and federal police to fight Mexico's powerful drug cartels since he took office in 2006. | |
The drugs cartels have fought back by attacking security forces. | |
They are also fighting each other to control lucrative trafficking routes. | |
The White House has again called on the US Congress to pass legislation that would allow more than $1bn of aid to be used in the fight against Mexico's drug cartels. |