Mexico has urged the US to stop weapons from landing in the hands of those drug gangs that use them to kill Mexican soldiers and police.

Mexican security forces have faced fierce gun battles gunfire from increasingly well-armed traffickers and officials say the vast majority of the weapons are smuggled from the United States.

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on that side of the border," Assistant Secretary of Public Safety Patricio Patino said in an interview with the Associated Press, the agency reported.

President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 24,000 soldiers and federal police to drug-stricken and violence-ravaged areas, and criminals have apparently responded by attacking army troops. Five soldiers have died in attacks this month.

Soldiers have not been the only ones caught in the drug battles. About 1,000 drug-related killings, many of them carried out by drug gangs against their rivals, have been recorded this year, a rate that would soar past last year's death toll of 2,000.

The army's role in the anti-drug war has led to other problems, however. On Tuesday, the director of the National Human Rights Commission said soldiers assigned to fight drug cartels have been accused of drugging, beating and raping four teenage girls over several days.

MRJ/HAR