Declaring that the country is “at war” with criminal gangs, the Government yesterday announced the introduction of soldiers, including the National Reserve, into its crime-fighting strategy, and promised that the state’s response to the brutality of the gangs would be lethal.

“We are at war,” National Security Minister Peter Phillips told yesterday’s graduation of 217 constables at the Jamaica Police Academy in Twickenham Park, St Catherine.

“We can only respond to this criminal assault on our rights and freedoms by bringing out the full weight of the legal power of the state, led by the army and the police, and to make sure every criminal takes into account the certainty of apprehension and justice,” Phillips said.

Phillips’s announcement came just over six hours after police dug up 13 illegal high-powered guns buried in a bag in a fowl coop in Judgement Yard in August Town, a Corporate Area community that has been tormented by intermittent violence over the past year.

The police have detained popular reggae deejay Sizzla, whose real name is Miguel Collins, as well as 31 other men and a woman in connection with various crimes committed in the area.

Police said the weapons found were six AK47 rifles, three sniper rifles, one M16 assault rifle, two shot guns and one tech nine sub machine gun.

They also found 23 AK47 rounds of ammunition in a tube, 31 rounds of nine millimetre rounds in a drink bottle, four M16 rounds in a plastic bag, two bullet-proof vests, 11 assorted magazines, and a silencer.

According to Superintendent Ionie Ramsay-Nelson, who heads the Constabulary Communication Network, the haul was the “largest number of high-powered weapons found in the field at any one time and in any one place”.

The weapons, she told the Observer, were in good condition.

“They are operational. They are well oiled and were well taken care of,” Ramsay-Nelson said.

Sizzla has been implicated in the violence affecting August Town, which residents say is rooted in a feud between men from Judgement Yard, and another area known as Jungle 12.

In September last year, August Town residents staged a demonstration and gave the deejay 24 hours to leave the community.

The residents claimed that men who usually gathered at Judgement Yard, owned by Sizzla, had been responsible for an upsurge of gun violence that, at the time, had claimed three lives.

In addition to Judgement Yard, several other premises in August Town, including 71 and 73 lanes, were searched by police and soldiers.

Ramsay-Nelson said that sections of five police divisions in St Andrew, St Catherine and St James were being targeted for special attention in an effort to curb the upsurge of criminal activity that has so far resulted in well over 300 murders across the island since the start of the year.

“There is some amount of organisation to criminal activity taking place in these areas,” Ramsay-Nelson said. “The searches will continue until normalcy is obtained, and even then, will be kept in focus.”

Phillips, in his address, reiterated this strategy, saying that police and soldiers would be clamping down on the areas most affected by violence in order to contain the high level of murders and shootings.

“The criminal gangs that have been spawned by the illegal drug trade have established their tentacles in selective communities where they use bribery and paramilitary violence to maintain control,” Phillips said. “The response of the law enforcement agencies to this reality must therefore be appropriate.

“The Jamaica Defence Force will be out in full force and will operate alongside the Jamaica Constabulary Force until further notice. We will also be calling out the National Reserve.”

The security forces, he said, will be deployed to Spanish Town, August Town and East Kingston in the first instance, where they will remain until the objectives have been realised. “That is, people feel safe to resume normal activities.”

The Government, Phillips added, will also assign an additional 150 cops to the Special Anti Crime Task Force led by Senior Superintendent Donald Pusey.

“The first 50 will be placed immediately, and the entire unit will benefit from specialised training exercises conducted by our international partners,” Phillips said.

He also said that the Government has:

. acquired motor vehicles and specialised intelligence gathering equipment to improve the mobility and intelligence capacity of the defence force and police;

. purchased 1,000 bullet-proof vests and 600 bullet-proof helmets for the police;

. expanded recruitment to the army and police force;

. ensured special accelerated training for select officers within the ranks of the police force; and

. improved the physical environment of police facilities islandwide.