A police raid on a Rio de Janeiro shantytown set off a fierce gunbattle that killed at least nine people and wounded seven on Tuesday, officials said.
Some 180 heavily armed officers entered the Vila Cruzeiro slum to search for drugs and arrest suspected dealers, a spokesman for Rio’s Public Safety Department said. He declined to be identified in line with departmental policy, AP said.
The spokesman said the nine men killed “had ties to drug gangs,“ and 14 “suspected drug traffickers“ were arrested. Police seized several heavy-caliber weapons, ammunition and drugs.
Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s most violent cities, with frequent shootouts between police and gangs and an annual murder rate of about 50 per 100,000.
A record 1,260 civilians died in clashes with police in Rio de Janeiro state last year, according to a report by the state’s Institute of Public Safety.

Pope Benedict XVI was expected Wednesday to raise sensitive issues such as the Iraq war and Hispanic immigration when he meets with President George W. Bush on the second day of a US visit that began under the cloud of a clergy sex scandal.
On the flight from Rome to Washington Tuesday, pope told reporters he felt “deeply ashamed“ by the child abuse scandal that has rocked the US church, and would use his first visit as pope to the United States to try to “heal the wounds caused by pedophile priests.“
According to AFP, he also vowed to raise the issue of immigration when he holds one-on-one talks with Bush at the White House on Wednesday.
The United States must do “everything possible to fight ... all forms of violence so that immigrants may lead dignified lives,“ the pope said in response to a reporter’s question about whether he would address the issue of Latin American immigrants with the US leader.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (c) speaks at the United Russia Party congress in Moscow on April 15.

Vladimir Putin agreed to take command of the United Russia Party when he steps down as president, enhancing the power he will wield as prime minister and bolstering his platform for a potential return to the Kremlin.
At a party congress that mixed promises of a bright future with traditions from the communist era, more than 550 delegates unanimously approved Putin as chairman of Russia’s most powerful political faction.
Speaking just three weeks before he will cede the presidency to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin said the move would help ensure that Russia’s political bosses and bureaucrats functioned as a “single organism“ for the good of the people.
“Today even more than before, we need the consolidation of political forces and the spiritual unity of our people,“ he told the congress in an exhibition center off Red Square.
Putin cast the move as a step toward European-style democracy, saying that for the head of a party to be prime minister is “a civilized, natural, traditional practice for democratic states.“
But the analogy was not precise because in Russia, the prime minister is appointed by the president, unlike the European parliamentary democracy system in which the chairman of the leading party is generally chosen as premier.
According to AP, critics dismissed Putin’s argument as a bid to lend legitimacy to a process engineered from the top down, saying it was more like a step backward toward Soviet times, when the Communist Party had no rival and its chief was the supreme leader.
Some analysts called Putin’s decision the strategic maneuver of a control-minded leader determined to head off potential challenges, and said it would undermine Medvedev by boosting the authority of Putin and parliament.
In terms of imagery, Putin eclipsed Medvedev at the congress, staying firmly in the spotlight in his final weeks of an eight-year presidency marked by carefully choreographed events that have helped enhance his popularity.
Putin sat flanked by Medvedev and United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov, who will continue to run the party’s day-to-day affairs when Putin becomes chairman May 7, the day Medvedev takes the oath of office.
In words that recalled the Soviet-era party congresses that drew delegates from all walks of life, Putin said his audience included “scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, businessmen and workers, artists and journalists, servicemen and builders, fishermen and agricultural workers, pensioners and youth.“
Medvedev turned down an offer of membership in the party, which would have made him--awkwardly--subordinate to Putin in its ranks.
Putin has never been a member of the party, instead cultivating the image of a czar-like figure who is above party politics--which many Russians see as a corrupt, crass business.
His acceptance as party leader marks “a serious shift in the whole political system,“ said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, according to the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
It means “switching the reins from the Kremlin to the prime minister,“ he was quoted as saying.