Hundreds of heavily armed Mexican soldiers moved into the city of CIUDAD JUAREZ on the Texas border. Situated in the desert on the Rio Grande river across from El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juarez has expanded quickly since the 1990s, with hundreds of "maquiladora" assembly plants opening to supply manufactured goods to the United States.

The soldiers have been sent in to end a drug war that has left 2,000 people murdered over the past year.
The troops are among 7,500 soldiers and 1,700 federal officers President Felipe Calderon ordered into Ciudad Juarez, to take over from the police that have been unable or unwilling to bring law to this major stop for drugs being smuggled into the U.S.

Ciudad Juarez bulges with factories making goods for export. But at night, the city once famed for its sex and tequila-fueled party life is ghostlike.

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20 inmates were killed in prison gang fights in Juarez.

Arizon gunshop X-Caliber Guns LLC, is accused of knowingly selling hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47s, to buyers who were posing as fronts for Mexican drug gangs. The gun store's owner, 47-year-old George Iknadosian, has maintained his innocence in court filings as he prepares to go to trial this week.

The number of U.S. guns in Mexico is growing. The Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, says more than 7,700 guns sold in America were traced to Mexico in the fiscal year ending last September. That's twice the 3,300 recorded the previous year and more than triple the 2,100 traced the year before that.