MEXICO CITY, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday said he was confident his crime-fighting strategy will help curb violence in Mexico, despite Monday's massacre of more than a dozen police officers.

"We are going to continue with our strategy ... I am optimistic. I believe we are going to achieve peace in the country," Lopez Obrador said during his daily press conference.

"We are going to succeed in preventing violence, which is a process. We are making firm progress ... we are going to continue to address the causes of this social breakdown," he said.

The president's strategy is to provide vulnerable youth with more opportunities, so they are not such easy targets for criminal groups.

Lopez Obrador, who came to power on Dec. 1, blamed past administrations for "letting the problem get too big" and "trying to fight violence with violence."

Armed assailants killed at least 13 police officers in an ambush in Aguililla, a town in west-central Michoacan state, on Monday.

Mexico's Minister of Defense Luis Sandoval said 80 soldiers and a military helicopter were deployed to the site to help authorities locate the assailants.

Aguililla is located in the state's Tierra Caliente, a drug planting region contested by rival drug trafficking groups.