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Eight killed during Mexican shootout with drug gangs

Gunmen in three vehicles opened automatic weapon fire in northern Mexico on Sunday, killing eight people including three children, authorities said, amid a huge surge in deadly crime.

The gunmen attacked four vehicles in Guamuchil, in Sinaloa state, killing passengers including two 17-year-old boys and a 12-year-old girl, Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office said.

Five more people were injured in the dizzying hail of some 300 bullets when the gunmen hit the four cars as they waited at a stop light, local media reported.

The attackers, dressed in police uniforms, took some 40 people hostage in a restaurant inside the mall while they negotiated their escape with police.

In an earlier attack on Saturday, six other armed men caused pandemonium in the Pacific port city of Mazatlan by taking refuge in a shopping mall to escape security forces after they shot dead local police chief Sixto Escobedo when he resisted their attempt to kidnap him.

Drug gang killings in Mexico have soared to unprecedented levels, with some 1,700 people dead so far this year, as an army-led crackdown intensifies turf wars between rival gangs, whose hitmen are increasingly taking their battles public with daylight shootouts in busy streets.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon began his crackdown in late 2006 but opinion polls show many Mexicans worry he is failing to gain the upper hand on cartels, who have grown bold enough to post threats or recruiting advertisements on street banners.

Hitmen, who are known to sometimes don police gear, often dump bodies with torture marks or severed heads in public, and while the vast majority of the victims are drug gang members, a few dozen civilians have been killed in street battles.
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