Mexican troops fan out across state hit by drug war

By Alberto Fajardo

NUEVA ITALIA, Mexico (Reuters) - Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers set up roadblocks on major highways on Saturday in President Felipe Calderon's home state, where drug gangs have stepped up attacks on Mexican security forces.

Troops toting automatic weapons and wearing ski masks to shield their identity searched vehicles in the western marijuana-growing state of Michoacan for signs of drug smuggling after the government ordered 5,500 soldiers and police to deploy to the area by land, sea and air.

The surge, one of the biggest in the three-year drug war, came after drug gangs targeted federal police in recent days in retaliation for the capture of a high-ranking member of the local La Familia (The Family) cartel.

In a brazen move last week, the cartel dumped the tortured and blood-smeared bodies of 12 federal police in a heap by a remote highway -- the latest victims of tit-for-tat violence that has killed some 12,800 people since Calderon took office in 2006.

A video allegedly showing the policemen being stripped, beaten and executed was briefly posted on YouTube, reported El Universal newspaper.

Ten municipal police officers from Michoacan were being held in custody on Saturday, suspected of collaborating with the cartel in the murders, the Mexican attorney general's office said.

"We've reached a point where the local authorities are tapped out, and so unfortunately it's necessary to call in extra forces to try and restore the peace to Michoacan," said Gerardo Gomez, a resident of the state's capital city Morelia where suspected drug gang hit men threw two grenades into a packed crowd celebrating Mexico's independence day last September.

ENORMOUS POWER

La Familia has grown in strength to the point where it controls elements of local police and even politicians in Michoacan, which has become a flash point of violence in a raging drug war that is worrying Washington and investors.

Calderon is from the large state of sparsely inhabited mountains hiding drug farms and labs, and it was the first place he decided to send troops.

But the recent wave of revenge attacks on security forces indicates that La Familia -- which is battling the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel known as the Zetas for control of Michoacan -- has been little weakened by the military crackdown.

La Familia appears to have gained enormous power in the state. Troops rounded up 10 mayors and a string of police chiefs in May accused of working for the cartel in one of the biggest single corruption sweeps of the drug war.

The cartel follows a code of conduct that bars its members from taking drugs or drinking alcohol and has contacted the media in the past to claim its aim is to protect Michoacan from Zeta hit men.

(Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Will Dunham)