Mexico police battle drug gang in 5-hour shootout

TIJUANA, Mexico, March 3 (Reuters) - Mexican police and soldiers traded gunfire with suspected drug gang members on Monday in a five-hour battle near the U.S. border that left a police officer and one of the suspected criminals dead.

The shootout began at a house in a residential neighborhood of Tijuana, a drug smuggling hot spot across the border from San Diego. It started on Sunday night and went on until early Monday, police said.

President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops and federal police to Tijuana and other cities in Baja California, Mexico's most violent state, to fight warring drug cartels and clean up corrupt local police.

Tijuana has recently suffered a spike in violence. Drug gang hitmen broke traditional codes of honor in the city in January by killing children, including a 3-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl.

Also in January, gunmen and more than 100 police and soldiers fought a three-hour battle outside a Tijuana kindergarten.

More than 2,500 people were killed in drug violence in Mexico last year and over 300 have died so far this year as cartels smuggling cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana fight each other for control of routes to the United States. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, editing by Alan Elsner)

source: rueters