Mexico's Calderon receives drug war threats

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon speaks during an interview in his office at the official residence, Los Pinos, in Mexico City March 22, 2007.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his family have received threats for launching a war against drug cartels, a fight that will drag on for years, he said on Thursday.

Calderon said the battle against the drug gangs would last beyond his six-year term in office, fueled by U.S. consumers' hunger for cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamines.

Since taking office in December, Calderon has sent thousands of troops to fight the feuding gangs and has extradited Osiel Cardenas, head of the infamous Gulf Cartel, to face trial in the United States.

"We have received a lot of threats and will no doubt receive more," he told the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit.

"We don't know if they are real or false but obviously they're not going to change our decision to carry out our job of fighting crime and those poisoning our children and youth."

Calderon has won glowing praise from Washington for clamping down on the cartels but he said there would be no easy victory and that U.S. demand was keeping the gangs in business.

"I'm a realist and I know this will be a long battle. We won't be able to proclaim victory or say it's over, not while consumption is so strong on the other side of the border," he said. "I probably won't see the end of it while I'm president."

He gave no details on the threats he and his family had received, but said he would not back down.

Under Calderon, the army has fanned out across Mexico to stem an explosion of violence that killed about 2,000 people in turf battles last year.

Calderon said there could be more violence before things improve as government successes in dismantling the cartels would likely trigger new power struggles for the most lucrative trafficking networks and opium and marijuana plantations.

No major traffickers have yet been arrested in the offensive and Mexico's cartels are believed to be gaining more power over smuggling routes from South America and in U.S. cities.

The extradition of several senior cartel leaders, including Cardenas, has raised fears of a possible backlash.

Last month, a group of drug hit men dressed as soldiers walked into two police stations in the resort city of Acapulco, disarmed officers and shot seven people to death.

Mexican police last week found $206 million of drug-smuggling cash stuffed into suitcases, drawers and closets in a Mexico City mansion. .