Hilary Clinton in vow to aid Mexico's drug war

Published on Friday 15 October 2010 21:19

HILLARY Clinton has vowed that the United States will do more to clamp down on Mexico's warring drug cartels.

The US Secretary of State claimed they were beginning to operate more like terrorist and insurgent groups.

Mrs Clinton has previously been criticised for comments she made last month comparing Mexico's problems to Colombia's cocaine wars.

But in a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, she said tackling the drug cartels in Mexico was "one of the most difficult fights that any country faces today."

She added: "We saw it over the last couple of decades in Colombia.

"We are watching drug traffickers undermine and corrupt governments in Central America, and we are watching the brutality and barbarity of their assaults on governors and mayors, the press, as well as each other, in Mexico.

"These drug cartels are now taking on a lot of the attributes of these terrorists and insurgent groups we see around the world.

"For the first time, they are using car bombings. You see them being much more organised in a kind of paramilitary way."

Mrs Clinton has been involved in the search for American David Hartley, who is thought to have been shot by drug bandits on the border with Texas last month.

She admitted Americans had shown an "insatiable demand" for illegal drugs, and that the US had failed to crack down on weapons trafficked into Mexico.

But she said the US was helping Mexico create a helpline to report drug cartels, and also wanted to help rebuild its justice system and train its police force.

More than 28,000 are thought to have died in Mexico in drug related violence in the past four years alone.