3,000 MEXICAN SOLDIERS ARRIVE BY CONVOY, PLANES

More than 3,000 Mexican troops arrived during the weekend in Juarez
as part of what authorities have described as a frontal assault on
crime in the coming weeks.

The new soldiers, which are in addition to the 2,000 already assigned
to Joint Operation Chihuahua, were deployed after a meeting last week
among high-level Mexican government officials in Juarez.

More troops, including intelligence units, are expected to arrive in
the next few days, said Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Joint
Operation Chihuahua, which began a year ago in the federal
government's battle against drug cartels and rising crime.

On Sunday, two green army Hercules cargo planes and two Mexican air
force transport planes landed in Juarez, bringing 1,200 troops,
Torres said. On Saturday, 2,000 soldiers rolled into city streets on
convoys of Humvees, army pickups and cargo trucks.

Juarez city officials said that within two weeks the anti-crime
patrol force will number 8,000 -- including 5,000 soldiers, 1,600
city police and 1,000 federales.

"We need the support of citizens united," Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes
Ferriz, who has received death threats, said in a statement. "This is
a fight of Juarez against crime. It is everyone's fight."

The violence, which has claimed more than 300 lives this year in the
Juarez area, continued during the weekend with at least nine
homicides since Friday, including two police officers slain Saturday
morning in the town of Praxedis G. Guerrero in the valley east of Juarez.

Chihuahua state investigators said Praxedis officers Luis Fernando
Porras Fuentes, 35, and Janeth Mares Lujan, 22, were killed when 117
rounds were fired from assault rifles at their truck.

In another incident, Jose Eduardo Olvera Lastra, 33, reportedly a
bouncer, was fatally shot in the parking lot of the Rodeo Discotheque
on Avenida Lincoln near the Bridge of the Americas.

In another case, police identified Belen Vega Perez, 39, as the woman
shot to death late Friday in the back seat of a black Chevrolet
Impala with Texas plates. It was unclear whether Vega was a resident
of Texas. Two 9 mm bullet casings were found at the scene.