Mexico's Mounting Challenge With Self-Defense Groups in Michoacan

The emergence of self-defense groups in Michoacan state in February 2013 has greatly complicated the nature of armed conflicts in the region, where violence had previously stemmed primarily from competition between rival criminal organizations. The self-defense militias have been expanding into a coordinated body and now operate in more than a dozen municipalities. Their primary goal is to combat the Knights Templar, the dominant criminal group in the state, while taking charge of public security in each town they enter, at times by disarming local police.

The expansion of the militias, along with the increase in violence related to them and the Knights Templar, has triggered several recent deployments of federal troops to the economically important state, which is home of the strategic port city of Lazaro Cardenas and near Mexico's political and economic core. However, already struggling to contain violence related to Mexico's drug cartels elswhere in the country, Mexico is trying to subdue Michoacan's self-defense groups, limit their expansion and preserve federal authority in the state will be tightly constrained.