Mexico "deeply" worried about deadly border city

By Catherine Bremer

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico is deeply worried about an explosion of drug gang killings on its border with Texas, but its army is stronger than the cartels, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told Reuters on Tuesday.

The deployment this week of some 5,000 extra troops to Ciudad Juarez would bring it back under control and that nationwide, drug violence was near its peak, Medina Mora said.

"Ciudad Juarez worries us deeply," he told Reuters in an interview, as hundreds of troops set up checkpoints in that city to try to control clashes that have killed some 2,000 people there over the past year.

However, he played down fears that Mexico is losing its war against a sprawling network of traffickers armed with guns often imported from the United States and showing unprecedented power just inches from U.S. soil.

"We think the Mexican state has much a greater power than any criminal group or any combination of criminal groups," Medina Mora said.

Ciudad Juarez has become the bloodiest flashpoint in President Felipe Calderon's two-year-old drug war, with some of the country's most powerful cartels fighting for control of lucrative smuggling routes through the city.

Drug gangs showed their power last month by forcing the city's police chief to resign with a threat to keep killing police officers until he quit.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has suggested deploying 1,000 U.S. troops or border patrol guards on his state's southern border, but Medina Mora said Mexico was in control of the situation.