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Houston Chronicle
Assassins gunned down a top federal police commander in Mexico City on Thursday, the latest in a string of attacks on senior law enforcement officers in the capital. The gunmen killed Igor Labastida, a senior investigator, and a bodyguard as they ate in a restaurant not far from downtown. Three other bodyguards and several civilians were wounded in the spray of bullets. Labastida was among officers in charge of combating contraband. Police offered no explanation Thursday of who might have killed Labastida. Until last spring, drug-related violence was rare in the capital.
But in the past three months, at least three senior police officers have been killed in the city, and their slayings have been linked to the government’s fight against the drug cartels that smuggle cocaine and other narcotics into the U.S. By various government and media tallies, nearly 5,000 people — including some 500 local, state and federal police officers — have been killed in the 18 months since President Felipe Calderon launched the campaign against the drug gangs. More
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