MEXICAN troops have clashed with the hitmen for suspected drug-traffickers in a cemetery, leaving 15 people dead in a fierce shoot-out, as more violence rocks the country.
The gun battle in the tourist town of Taxco today, appeared to be the latest eruption in the Latin American nation’s bloody drug wars, which have now cost 160 lives in six days – one of the deadliest weeks in some time. The clashes left “15 assailants killed”, the national defence office said.
A military unit went to the town on a report of trouble, and was greeted with gunfire on arrival at a private home, the defence information office at Sedena said. Soldiers fought for about 40 minutes before the shooting subsided.
The latest clashes hit the southern tourist state of Guerrero, in the town of Taxco, some 170km south of Mexico City, and a popular draw due to its intricate silver handicrafts and jewellery.
Late last month a mass grave was also uncovered near the town, with 55 bodies that had been dumped in an air shaft of an abandoned silver mine found – one of the largest such graves ever discovered in Mexico.
Guerrero state, on the Pacific coast, is an important transit point for illegal shipments of cocaine and heroin arriving from South America en route to the US, the world’s largest illegal drug market. The gunmen involved in today’s shoot-out were loyal to drug lord Edgar Valdez, better known as “La Barbie”, the daily El Universal reported on its website, citing an unidentified police source.
The US-born Valdez has been engaged since December in a bloody turf war for the control of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. It has become one of Mexico’s bloodiest weeks in several months, with more than 160 people slain since Thursday around the country. More than 40 people were killed yesterday in separate attacks, including a prison riot between rival drug gangs in the northwestern city of Mazatlan, which left 28 dead.
Mexican authorities blamed the notorious “La Familia” drug cartel for a different outbreak of violence yesterday, when 12 police officers were killed in an ambush in western Michoacan state.
“They were people from La Familia” who were responsible, said Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-drug unit.
The police came under fire as a convoy of uniformed officers travelled by car to Mexico City. Police officials said several assailants were also killed in the shoot-out.
In another recent attack, a drug cartel kidnapped 12 federal police officers, decapitated them and dumped their bodies on a busy highway.
Michoacan is President Felipe Calderon’s home state, from where he launched a nationwide crackdown against drug-trafficking, deploying some 50,000 troops and police across Mexico in December 2006. Mexico is being rocked by an unprecedented wave of violence as powerful drug cartels vie for rich drug trafficking routes into the US.
Nearly 23,000 people have been killed in the country since the crackdown began in 2006. Mexican authorities meanwhile, slapped a limit of $US4000 ($4618) per month on bank deposits by individuals, aiming to thwart drug traffickers who use the US currency to stash away their illicit profits.
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