US sees no let-up in Mexico drug war killings

MEXICO CITY, June 19 (Reuters) The ferocious rate of killings in Mexico's drug war is unlikely to slow despite President Felipe Calderon's military assault on the cartels, a senior US anti-drug official said.

More than 1,000 people have died this year in a battle between the Mexican government, the Gulf Cartel and an alliance of traffickers from the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

The US official said Calderon's dispatch of 25,000 troops across the country was putting pressure on the cartels but that the rivalry between the gangs was too great for them to stop killing each other.

''Would I anticipate less killings? Not necessarily,'' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ''There is a significant level of retribution being passed from one group to the other.'' The official said yesterday that drug-trafficking brought an estimated sum of up to 24 billion dollars into Mexico every year. He said the cartels were so desperate to stay in business that they were tipping off the government about each others' activities.

Since Calderon took power in December, armored Humvees have rolled through the streets in hotspots like the western state of Michoacan, where gruesome killings and beheadings by competing local groups tied to the cartels are common.

Violence aside, the official said drug gangs faced a more daunting task in moving their wares to the United States.

''The traffickers must be concerned, more than ever today, about their capability to continue a strong criminal enterprise and that's precisely and exactly where we want them to be,'' he said.

REUTERS KN SBA BST0728