Mexico dispatches elite troops, scrambles to act in wake of cartel city battle

CULIACAN, Mexico, (Reuters) - Mexico jumped into action yesterday in the wake of a cartel assault that freed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s son in a northern city, sending in special forces to patrol the town and asking U.S. officials to stop gun-smuggling across the shared border.

More than 400 soldiers turned up in Culiacan over the weekend after gunmen from the Sinaloa cartel briefly took control of the city and forced security forces to free the drug lord’s son from a botched arrest attempt.

“We are going to protect the citizens, that is our mission,” said General Carlos Ramon Carrillo de Villar, who oversaw formations of soldiers marching at a media event. “We are fighting insecurity.”

The convoys of army trucks with mounted machine guns rumbling through Culiacan’s streets were meant to instill confidence. But a national poll on Monday showed two thirds of respondents believe drug lords and mobsters are more powerful than the government after the gunbattles last week that forced an army retreat.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has insisted the decision to release Ovidio Guzman was the only way to save lives after cartel henchmen erected roadblocks, torched trucks and opened fire with heavy, military-style weapons.

After a telephone call with U.S. President Donald Trump over the weekend, Mexican Cabinet ministers met with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Landau to ask for help stemming the flow of weapons bought legally in the United States and sold to cartels south of the border.