Mexico vows to capture No.1 trafficker

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's attorney general vowed on Wednesday to catch the country's most wanted man, drug trafficker Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who is responsible for some of the worst violence in a bitter narco war.

Attorney-General Eduardo Medina Mora said the much hunted Guzman, is located somewhere in a huge swathe of mountain territory where the northern states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa meet.

"(He) is a priority objective for the Mexican government. There is an important deployment to that end in the vast area where he has a presence," Medina Mora said at the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit in Mexico City.

Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel who escaped from a high security prison in 2001, has earned almost legendary status for avoiding security forces.

But Medina Mora said the trafficker would be trapped.

"It will be a great success when that happens, and it is going to happen," he said.

Some 2,000 people have died in drug violence in Mexico this year, much of it caused by Guzman whose hitmen are at odds with the Gulf cartel and another gang in Ciudad Juarez, on the border with El Paso, Texas.

The archbishop of Durango state caused a media frenzy last month when he said Guzman was living in a village there. A few days later, gunmen killed two undercover Mexican military intelligence officers in the area and left a taunting message on their bodies purporting to be from aides of Guzman.

Medina Mora said capturing Guzman was not the main aim of the government, which has deployed 45,000 troops throughout the country to try to dampen drug violence.

"It is not the federal government's only objective. Our main purpose has been to damage criminal organizations, logistics and markets," and prevent cartels from growing, he said.

A large troop deployment in Ciudad Juarez has brought down violence in the city dramatically since March.

(Reporting by Alistair Bell and Anahi Rama; Editing by Gary Hill)