'They're ready to die for him': At least 60 dead in Jamaican slum standoff as police storm den of druglord wanted by U.S.



At least 60 people have died in Jamaica in a battle between police and a drug gang after police stormed the stronghold of a powerful druglord wanted by the U.S.

Thousands of police assaulted the Kingston council estate occupied by heavily armed gangsters as a three-day slum standoff over Christopher 'Dudus' Coke exploded into violence.

Hospital sources told the AFP news agency that at least 60 people had died in the fighting.



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Christopher 'Dudus' Coke: The Jamaica Constabulary Force issued images of the underworld boss as the Prime Minister Bruce Golding agreed to extradite him to the U.S.



Jamaica's security forces, reeling from bold attacks by masked gangsters loyal to the underworld boss, were in the midst of a nearly daylong assault in the heart of West Kingston's ramshackle slums, long afflicted by gang strife.



The Jamaican government has already ordered a month-long state of emergency. Last night the Foreign Office was warning against all but essential travel to the Jamaican capital.



Yesterday was the third consecutive day of unrest.



The U.S. wants to extradite Coke to face cocaine-trafficking and drug-running charges.



It was not clear last night if he was still in Kingston or if he has managed to escape to another part of the country.



Many residents of the island nation's capital see Coke as a Robin Hood figure, a community leader, and have barricaded the Kingston slums to prevent his seizure by police.



'They say they are prepared to die for him,' Elizabeth Bennett, a radio reporter for Nationwide 90 FM, told reporters over the weekend.



Gangsters loyal to the underworld boss began barricading streets and preparing for battle immediately after Prime Minister Bruce Golding caved in to a growing public outcry over his opposition to extradition.



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WHY WOULD KINGSTON'S POOR FIGHT FOR THIS MAN?

Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, right, is described as one of the world's most dangerous drug lords by the U.S. Justice Department. He has ties to the governing Jamaica Labour Party and holds significant sway over the West Kingston area represented in Parliament by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, pictured below.

Jamaica's political history is intertwined with the street gangs that the two main parties helped organise - and some say armed - in Kingston's poor neighbourhoods in the 1970s and 1980s. The gangs controlled the streets and intimidated voters at election time.

But in recent years political violence waned, and many of the killings in Kingston now are blamed on the active drug and extortion trade.

Coke was born into Jamaica's gangland. His father was the leader of the notorious Shower Posse gang, a cocaine-trafficking band with agents in Jamaica and the U.S. that began operating in the 1980s and was named for its members' tendency to spray victims with bullets. The son took over from the father, and expanded the gang into selling marijuana and crack cocaine in the New York area and elsewhere, U.S. authorities allege. As a West Kingston community 'don', Coke has acted as an ad hoc civic leader and provides protection and jobs. It is in this role that he inspired the loyalty of residents turned gangsters in the slums of Kingston. Though Golding, pictured above, did everything he could for nine months to stall Dudus's extradition, he finally caved in last week due to growing public outcry and U.S. pressure. As soon as he did, gangsters began barricading the streets of West Kingston in preparation for the battle that is now ensuing.

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



Police spokesman Corporal Richard Minott said that the fighting in West Kingston alone has killed 26 civilians one security official. Police had reported that earlier fighting killed two officers and a soldier.



Kingston streets outside the battle zones were mostly empty, schools and numerous businesses were closed, hospitals offered only emergency services and the government appealed for donations of blood.



The violence has not spilled into the capital's wealthier neighborhoods, but gangs from slums just outside the capital have joined the fight, erecting barricades on roadways and shooting at troops.



In Spanish Town, a rough community just outside the areas where the government has installed a state of emergency, police reported that a firefight killed two local people, including a little boy.



In the gang-heavy town of Portmore, police said gunmen sprayed bullets at a minivan ferrying local people. It was not clear if anyone died.



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



The drug trade is deeply entrenched in Jamaica, which is the largest producer of marijuana in the region and where gangs have become powerful organized 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.



A woman in Tivoli Gardens told Radio Jamaica that she and her terrified family were hunkered down in their apartment 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 gunbattle nearby.

'The police is appealing to residents of Tivoli Gardens to desist from blocking the entrance to the community,' police force spokesman Karl Angell said in a statement.



'We are also appealing to the decent citizens of Tivoli Gardens who wish to leave to contact the police.'



Along the pitted and trash-strewn streets of West Kingston, residents say Coke is feared for his strong-arm tactics, but also is known for helping out slum dwellers with grocery bills, jobs and school fees.



He reportedly owns a company called Presidential Click that throws wild street parties in Tivoli Gardens each week and handles public works contracts in West Kingston's slums, where flatbed trucks have brought in huge stockpiles of construction materials to build in barricades against the police.

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His influence extends well beyond the capital. Police say gunmen from gangs that operate under the umbrella of his Shower Posse elsewhere on the island have been flocking to his defence.

The normally bustling streets were mostly deserted, as the country marked its Labor Day national holiday and motorists and passersby steered clear of the trouble spot.

Golding said on Sunday the state of emergency would remain in effect for a month and would demonstrate that Jamaica is 'a land of peace, order and security' where gang-related violence will not be tolerated.

'This will be a turning point for us as a nation to confront the powers of evil that has penalized the society and earned us the unenviable label as one of the murder capitals of the world,' he said.

In a gritty section of the capital of an island known more for reggae and all-inclusive resorts, the violence erupted after nearly a week of rising tensions over the possible extradition of Coke to the United States.

Golding had stalled the extradition request for nine months with claims the U.S. indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence.



Lawyers for Coke - who in addition to Dudus is also known as Small Man and President - challenged his extradition in Jamaica's Supreme Court.

About 10 percent of the capital was cordoned by security.



The violence has not touched the tourist meccas along the Caribbean island's north shore, but several hotels reported cancellations. Air Jamaica rescheduled four flights today because of the unrest in Kingston.

