The top security adviser for Mexico’s next president said on Friday that he is recommending the creation of elite units of police and troops who will target not just major drug traffickers but also lower-level cartel hitmen as a way of swiftly reducing violence...The Mexico Institute's Eric Olson comments.
The proposal by newly retired Colombian police director general Oscar Naranjo explained in an interview, offers a glimpse of how President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto might fulfill his promise to slash the number of murders and kidnappings by 50 percent during his six years in office...
Such units, which Naranjo said could be comprised in Mexico of the Army, Navy and police, should pursue not just of “high-value targets” such as Sinaloa and Zeta cartel bosses, said Naranjo, who retired June 12 after five years atop his country’s 170,000-member police...
The idea has been discussed by Mexico’s security experts, and makes sense as a component of a broader strategy to reduce violence, said Eric Olson, associate director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
“If you want to really stop the violence, don’t focus on the kingpins, focus on the killers, it kind of eliminates this middle range of actors,” he said.
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