Gun battles rage as Jamaican drug lord resists arrest

More than 1,000 police and soldiers have raided a public housing complex occupied by heavily armed gangsters defending an alleged drug lord wanted by the US.

In a major offensive in the heart of West Kingston's ramshackle slums, security forces broke through barbed-wire barricades and fought their way into the warren-like Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood yesterday.

Sporadic gunfire could be heard into the night echoing across the darkened slums, where authorities cut off power.

Military helicopters flying with their lights off buzzed overhead.

Masked gunmen swarmed around West Kingston trying to prevent the extradition of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who has been indicted in New York on drug and arms trafficking charges.

The US Justice Department considers him one of the world's most dangerous drug lords.

While fighting raged in Tivoli Gardens, gunbattles spread to other volatile slums close to the Jamaican capital Kingston.

It was not immediately clear what was happening inside the virtual fortresses where Coke's supporters began massing last week after Prime Minister Bruce Golding dropped his nine-month stonewalling against extraditing Coke, who has ties to the governing party.

Authorities said two police officers had been killed and at least six wounded since Sunday, and at least one Jamaican soldier was shot dead during Monday's fighting at Tivoli Gardens, the Caribbean island's first housing project.

There were no details on casualties inside the neighbourhood or other poor areas where clashes erupted.

A woman in Tivoli Gardens told Radio Jamaica that she and her terrified family were cowering in their flat as a firefight raged outside.

"I really pray that somebody will find the love in their heart and stop this right now. It is just too much, my brother," the woman told the station, the sound of a gun battle audible in the background.

Gangsters loyal to Coke began barricading streets and preparing for battle immediately after Golding caved in to a growing public outcry over his opposition to extradition.

Jamaica's leader, who represents West Kingston in Parliament, had previously claimed the US indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence.

West Kingston, which includes the Trenchtown slum where reggae superstar Bob Marley was raised, is the epicentre of the violence.

But security forces also came under fire in areas outside that patchwork of slums.

A police station in an outlying area of Kingston parish was showered with bullets by a roving band of gunmen with high-powered rifles.

Security Minister Dwight Nelson said "police are on top of the situation", but gunfire was reported in several poor communities and gunmen even shot up Kingston's central police station.

The drug trade is deeply entrenched in Jamaica, which is the largest producer of marijuana in the region and where gangs have become powerful organised crime networks involved in international gun smuggling.

It fuels one of the world's highest murder rates; the island of 2.8 million people had about 1,660 homicides in 2009.

In a sun-splashed island known more for reggae music and all-inclusive resorts, the violence erupted on Sunday afternoon after nearly a week of rising tensions over the possible extradition of Coke to the US, where he faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

He leads one of the gangs that control politicised slums known as "garrisons".

Political parties created the gangs in the 1970s to rustle up votes. The gangs have since turned to drug trafficking, but each remains closely tied to a political party. Coke's gang is tied to the governing Labour Party.

The US State Department said yesterday it was "the responsibility of the Jamaican government to locate and arrest Mr Coke". A US Embassy spokeswoman denied widespread rumours that US officials were meeting with Coke's lawyers.

Coke's lead attorney, Don Foote, told reporters his legal team had planned to have talks with US officials at the embassy but the meeting was cancelled.

Foote refused to say whether Coke was in the barricaded Tivoli Gardens slum or was somewhere else in the country.