Mexico has decided to offer multi-million dollar rewards for information leading to the arrest of the country's top 24 drug lords.

Meanwhile, the United States is finalising plans to move federal agents and equipment to the border with Mexico to help the anti-drug effort.

Mexico's Attorney-General has published a list of 24 drug kingpins in the country's six largest cartels and is offering rewards of almost $3 million each for information which leads to their arrests.

It is the latest step by the Mexican Government to confront a drug war that killed more than 6,000 people in Mexico last year and is estimated to have claimed the lives of 1,000 this year.

Some of that violence is now spilling over into the US, especially in border states like Texas and Arizona where kidnappings and killings are on the rise.

Janet Napolitano is the former Governor of Arizona and the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

She says the Obama administration is taking the threat from the Mexican drug cartels seriously.

"This issue is getting top attention in multiple departments of the US, planning is well underway," she said.

Mexico's most wanted list comes just days before a visit from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a month before a trip to Mexico by President Barack Obama.

Janet Napolitano says a key challenge is stopping the flow of arms from the US into Mexico.

John Cook is the mayor of El Paso in Texas, a town on the border with Mexico, and says the US has to take some responsibility for the violence.

Across the border from El Paso is Juarez, which has been a major battleground.

An estimated 2,000 people have died there in the past year.

It has been flooded with Mexican troops, helping to bring the violence down.

A local journalist, who did not want to be identified, says in almost every part of the town, there is another deadly story.

The governors of Texas and Arizona have asked for National Guard troops to be sent to the border.

Some analysts think the Obama administration will stop short of deploying military personnel.

But in what will be Mr Obama's first major domestic security initiative, he could send more federal agents to help crack down on the weapons moving from the US into Mexico.

As Mexico's drug cartels battle each other for supply routes into the United States as well as fighting off a crackdown from their own Government, the threat to the United States is clear.

US law enforcement officials have identified 230 American cities where the cartels are now operating.

© 2008 Australian Broadcasting Corporation