EDITOR'S NOTE _ AP reporter Elliot Spagat followed Tijuana's new public safety chief, Julian Leyzaola, for eight months as he launches the city's most aggressive police reform to date, in the middle of a raging drug war.

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) _ Behind every crime is a corrupt cop.

That's Public Safety Secretary Julian Leyzaola's mantra as he storms Tijuana with its most aggressive police reform to date, a mix of counterterrorism and community policing. If it works, it could be a model for other hotspots and a huge breakthrough in a drug war in Mexico that has taken more than 14,000 lives in the last three years.

But the job is as monumental as turning around Al Capone's Chicago. Cops in this border city and many others nationwide now serve as the eyes and ears of drug lords. And those who fight the cartels _ let alone those who lead that fight _ often end up dead.

Leyzaola, 49, wanted to be in Tijuana. After 25 years in the army and stints running Baja California's state prisons and police, he moved to the police department in 2007 to be at the center of the fight against organized crime. A year ago, he became head of the largest police force in Baja, where 90 percent of officers surveyed last year failed federal security checks.

The Associated Press followed Leyzaola for eight months as he rallied troops, consoled officers' widows and appealed to jaded residents for support. The AP joined commanders and officers on patrol, at target practice and in training classes.

"Listen well," the retired military officer says with his trademark certitude. "No delinquent can survive without help from the authorities. If you do not clean up the police, you will never get rid of drug trafficking."

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Leyzaola's march to recapture the city starts in early 2009 and expands to a new district every three months. The plan is to begin in quieter areas and end in 2011 in the east, the city's most violent section, where Teodoro "El Teo" Garcia Simental wages a vicious campaign to take over Tijuana's drug trade from the Arellano Felix family.

Leyzaola draws his strategy from many sources, including French counterterrorism operations in Algeria in the 1950s and Colombia's war against its cartels in the '90s. He has $7 million in federal money this year, part of the $300 million President Felipe Calderon is giving to clean up police nationwide.

The plan for each district: First, a strike force is sent to make a slew of arrests. Then beat cops are replaced by officers who pass intensive background checks, and former military officers take over as commanders.