Colombia stepping up anti-drug training of Mexico's army, police

But "the capacity that the armed forces and police have in Colombia is very useful," Salazar said. "We are looking to work together on solutions."

Colombia's national police force collects forensic evidence, like any police department. But it is also unique in the Americas in that it operates like an army light infantry unit, equipped with helicopters and potent munitions to take on heavily armed bands.

"They just have experience in stuff that others don't have: experience in dealing with kidnappings, experience in explosives, experience in taking down powerful narcotics organizations," said William R. Brownfield, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia who now heads the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

Colombian instructors, accompanied by investigators and prosecutors from the United States and Canada, have run weeks-long courses in Mexico on how to collect evidence and carry forward cases to help break up drug cartels.

Mexican judicial authorities, including prosecutors and judges, have come to Colombia to discuss legal reforms that Mexico can implement to give the state more leverage in seizing assets tainted by drugs.

In all, about 7,000 Mexicans have participated in the training, which is paid for in part by $800,000 in U.S. funds.

The violence in Mexico began to spike dramatically in 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of troops and federal police to combat drug cartels.

The death count is now nearly 35,000, as the cartels have fought back ferociously to maintain their fiefdoms.

Some of those gangs have responded with the weaponry and strategies of war, including preemptive ambushes against Mexican forces and efforts to control territory, said Steven Dudley, co-director of InSight, a think tank that tracks organized crime in Colombia and Mexico.

"If a security force encroaches on that territory, then they respond in much the same way as a guerrilla group would respond," Dudley said. "We are increasingly seeing tactics that are similar to guerrillas, like car bombs, use of grenades, the interest in controlling territory."

Commando school

Early one morning shortly before dawn, Colombian police commandos barked orders like drill sergeants at six Mexican policemen and two Mexican soldiers during a mock attack here outside Cajica, a town on a frigid mountain in central Colombia. The target in the training exercise: a heavily defended rebel camp.

It was the tail end of four months of training that included lessons on how to carry out operations in the jungle, jump from helicopters, defuse bombs and conduct raids on urban strongholds.