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Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto Marco Ugarte/AP/Press Association Images

Mexico confirms 22 killed in coordinated attack on police

Attackers equipped with high-powered rifles and grenades carried out a carefully-planned attack against federal police in western Mexcio.

HEAVILY-ARMED MEN assaulted Mexican federal police units in a carefully planned attack in which 22 people were killed, most of them assailants, in six towns, the government announced Tuesday.

The gunmen concealed themselves in hills above checkpoints in Michoacan state, a western area tormented by drug cartels, and blocked at least four sections of highway before swooping on their targets, wielding grenades.

“So far, we have two federal police killed, 20 presumed criminals shot dead and another 15 people under arrest,” the Interior Ministry’s National Security Council said in a statement.

The attackers were equipped with high-powered rifles and grenades when they struck in the troubled Tierra Caliente region, a hot spot for gang violence, the council added, without stating how many police or gunmen had been wounded.

Promise to keep thousands of troops in area

In May, Mexico’s government promised to keep thousands of troops in Michoacan, which has 4.3 million citizens, until peace is restored.

Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong at the time held a meeting of the national security team in the state capital Morelia with local officials, aimed at tackling a crime wave that led some towns to start vigilante groups.

Officials said 4,000 soldiers and marines and 1,000 federal police were deployed. Osorio Chong also said the forces would leave once security conditions have improved and the state government can hold its own.

Michoacan was the first state to see troops when former president Felipe Calderon decided to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers across the country to crack down on drug cartels in 2006.

But gang violence surged throughout Mexico, leaving 70,000 people dead in its wake when Calderon left office in December, and a powerful new cartel, the Knights Templar, emerged in Michoacan.

‘Closer coordination’ between authorities

Osorio Chong has insisted that the strategy ordered by current President Enrique Pena Nieto will be different than his predecessor’s, with a single command, close coordination between various authorities, greater use of intelligence assets, and an economic development program.

Pena Nieto took office in December vowing to switch the focus toward reducing the level of violence. He has since launched a crime prevention program but he says troops will stay until the murder rate declines.

Fed up with crime, vigilantes have appeared in recent months and clashed with the Knights Templar cartel, notably in Tierra Caliente.

Drug gangs have existed for decades in Michoacan, where they grow marijuana and opium poppies and produce synthetic drugs in makeshift labs before shipping them to the United States.

- © AFP, 2013

Read: Mexico captures boss of vicious Zetas drug cartel
Column: “They put a gun to my head and told me to shut up or they would blow it off”
Read: Mexican troops occupy towns amid war between vigilantes and drug cartels

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    Mute Me-llamo Noel
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:09 PM

    @Steve Creaton: You should be ashamed of yourself to make such a comment.

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    Mute Brian Boru
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:13 PM

    Let’s be honest, he will be too old for a second term, especially in the final year or two. The Democrats have a problem on their hands.

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:08 PM

    @Steve Creaton: why?

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    Mute Rafa Condron
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:09 PM

    Happens me all the time. I’m half his age.

    Never forget putting on the swagger walk when I was younger, group of young ones coming towards me, tripped on a crack in the pavement and faceplanted. They laughed. I laughed.

    I was a lovely shade of red.

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    Mute An Drew Bearla
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    Jun 1st 2023, 11:06 PM

    @Rafa Condron: if this is commonplace for you, fair enough. How many times does he have to stumble and mumble before people admit he is not fit for office.

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    Mute Rafa Condron
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 4:58 AM

    @An Drew Bearla: what an inane comment. Bore off

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    Mute Colm Kane
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 9:56 AM

    @An Drew Bearla: Did you not see the sandbag that was on the stage that he tripped over…. It can happen to anyone!

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    Mute Mark O Brien
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 11:02 AM

    @An Drew Bearla: The same people who think Biden isn’t fit for office for these reasons will swear blind that trump is fit for office, and he has done much of the same type of stuff.

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    Mute An Drew Bearla
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 1:45 PM

    @Mark O Brien: I know this is difficult to comprehend, but just because you criticise Biden, it does not mean you support Trump. Treating politics the same as your favourite football team leads to this type of blinkered vision, resulting in terrible politics and government.

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    Mute Daithi
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:31 PM

    He was rather slow getting back up – one could say he was Biden his time.

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    Mute Joanne Stokes
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    Jun 1st 2023, 10:44 PM

    @Daithi: hahaha…

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    Mute Aindriú de Domhain
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:13 PM

    @Steve Creaton: You should be in a care home

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    Mute McMahon G
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:43 PM

    RFK Jr. for President.

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    Mute Tony Murphy
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:57 PM

    @McMahon G: YES!!

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    Mute John A.
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:28 PM

    @Hannah Hannah: You should all be ashamed of yourselves for trying to make eachother feel ashamed!

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    Mute Tony Murphy
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:55 PM

    @McMahon G: Yes, showering with his teenage daughter puts him in that category. She attributes her subsequent problems to this experience.

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    Mute Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:56 PM

    Hope the clone makes a full recovery

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    Mute Denis Ryan
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    Jun 1st 2023, 10:23 PM

    @Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024: I thought you said he was a actor with a 3/4 scale white house on a sound stage.

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    Mute Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024
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    Jun 1st 2023, 10:30 PM

    @Denis Ryan: I got intel from a reliable source that for 80′s actor Arthur roberts was removed as a body double as he wasn’t playing to the ‘script’.

    when roberts (playing Biden) met boris johnson last summer he asked johnson did he ever see any of his martial arts movies in the 80′s. Johnson became suspicious and democrats decided to use a clone to lay Biden. No one knows what became of roberts. Clearly this clone is malfuntioning. the technology is still at the early stages…

    https://flipboard.com/article/biden-body-double-blows-cover-during-meet-with-boris-johnson-real-raw-news/f-bf1486acd5%2Frealrawnews.com

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    Mute Andy O'B
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    Jun 1st 2023, 10:57 PM

    @Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024: the crazy thing about the internet is now I do not know if you are being serious or not…if you aren’t, it’s a funny joke. If you are being serious, you need help. Seriously!

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    Mute Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024
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    Jun 1st 2023, 11:10 PM

    @Andy O’B: I’m only offering you the red pill to learn potentially unsettling or life-changing truths – or the blue pill of you wish to continue living in the matrix. you will never see who deep the rabbit hole goes sniffling around on the surface
    https://www.buymeacoffee.com/truther

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    Mute Denis Ryan
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    Jun 1st 2023, 11:21 PM

    @Andy O’B: Seriously Andy, would you not take the red pill ;)
    So to recap red pill good, blue pill bad. Its weird most of the pills I took back in the day were white or slightly speckled. Had a pink panther once in Amsterdam but that’s a story for another day.

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    Mute Daithi Mac An TSionnaigh
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:40 PM

    @Steve Creaton: you should be in a care home

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    Mute Martin Lynch
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:38 PM

    @Steve Creaton: Disgusting comment!

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    Mute Sean Partidge
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    Jun 1st 2023, 11:03 PM

    @Hannah Hannah: oh look Anna Anna is back.

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    Mute john murray
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    Jun 1st 2023, 10:23 PM

    Not as horrific as that time Enda Kenny tripped over a plantpot and accused Ursula Halligan of assault.

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    Mute Barry Donnelly
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:58 PM

    Yeah but Trump

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    Mute GERARD KENNELLY
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 8:41 AM

    @Willie Marty:

    Compilation Joe Biden CSPAN

    RAW VIDEO & AUDIO January 6, 2015

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    Mute R
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:56 PM

    @Steve Creaton: I hope when you’re his age we say the same about you.

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    Mute Michael Holland
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 12:21 AM

    If this happened Trump, there’d be another witch hunt..

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    Mute GERARD KENNELLY
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 8:43 AM

    @Michael Holland:

    i saw a Trump interview recently and he said Biden isn’t physically fit to be POTUS

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    Mute R
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:58 PM

    @Hannah Hannah: You should be ashamed of yourself for believing in that conspiracy theory bulls**t

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    Mute Johnny Kelly
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 2:02 AM

    @Steve Creaton: He is 80!
    It can happen.
    More care needs to be taken where he has to climb on and off stages

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    Mute Rafa Condron
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:29 PM

    @John A.: SHAME!

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    Mute Lydia McLoughlin
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:56 PM

    @Steve Creaton: I’d say he’s being very well cared for at home at the moment!

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    Mute Ham Hat
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    Jun 1st 2023, 10:35 PM

    He loves the Apartheid Occupation of the Middle East more than his homeless people. Such a ziosless

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    Mute GERARD KENNELLY
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 8:42 AM

    @Ham Hat:

    Joe Biden was committee chairman the week W Bush and Blair lied about WMD

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    Mute John Moore
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 12:13 AM

    He styled it out well. Nobody noticed.

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    Mute Vladimir Poitín
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 12:55 AM

    @John Moore: lol.

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 12:17 AM

    @Hannah Hannah: oh good grief!!! While your cult hero’s delays and ridiculous advice killed 1000s.

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    Mute Jason Walsh
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:41 PM

    He definitely ordered a nuclear strike on that sand bag. “I’m said nuke it, I’m the president god darn it”

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    Mute Robert Halvey
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 7:19 AM

    Who among us ,of any age ,has not stumbled and in fact fell down .

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    Mute Anthony Ross
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    Jun 1st 2023, 9:46 PM

    I would say who put the bag there maybe a trumpet

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    Mute Numinous20111
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    Jun 1st 2023, 11:11 PM

    @Anthony Ross: Whoever left any obstacle on a podium being used by a President (no matter what the president’s age or which president) should get a serious chewing out. That is beyond stupid carelessness.

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    Mute Daniel Carry
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 2:10 AM

    So what. Gerald Ford did it all the time. Bush Sr puked into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister FFS.

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    Mute Jimmy Fitzpatrick
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 5:56 AM

    I was at a confirmation yesterday and I seen 3 people slip, won’t tell what gender they were!

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    Mute GERARD KENNELLY
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 8:46 AM

    @Jimmy Fitzpatrick:

    my uncle was working in Galway years ago and he was climbing up a ladder

    he was wearing white sneakers

    a man said “Isn’t it a fright to god to see a grown man still wearing his communion shoes”

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    Mute Dave Grant
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 7:46 AM

    Russia.

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    Mute Anna Carr
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 8:16 AM

    I would trip over my own shadow and I’m not yet Joe’s age, but he certainly does seem to have some senior deterioration issues, mentally. But then, the USA presidency does seem to be a puppet title… Unless you’re Donald Trump.

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    Mute Edd
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 11:29 AM

    Who the US President is does not matter as they are not decision makers but they just rubber stamp the decisions of others.

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    Mute Fearg
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 9:50 AM

    American ‘elections’ are just their version of EuroVision. It’s shameful how poor the performers are. Surely there is more talent available for the corporate controllers to employ.

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    Mute GERARD KENNELLY
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 8:34 AM

    @Steve Creaton:

    Compilation Joe Biden

    CSPAN

    RAW VIDEO & AUDIO

    January 6, 2015

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    Mute Patrick D Keane
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    Jun 2nd 2023, 2:48 PM

    No need for a lone gunman when Biden is around

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