A spasm of violence linked to Mexico’s powerful drug cartels has killed at least 160 people in just six days — one of the bloodiest weeks in the country’s war on drug gangs in months.
On Tuesday, Mexican troops clashed with hitmen for suspected traffickers in a cemetery, leaving 15 people dead in a fierce shootout.
The gun battle in the tourist town of Taxco was just the latest in a string of bloody incidents in recent days, prompting Mexican President Felipe Calderon to make a nationally televised statement.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The executive has staked his presidency on tackling Mexico’s drug gangs and said the eruption of violence was partly the result of cartels regrouping after being hit by his administration’s efforts against them.
“We have struck important blows against all the cartels, without exception,” he said.
“This has created division between the criminal gangs, which along with the traditional rivalries and the wars between them has led to these episodes of violence,” he said.
The fight against the cartels “is not only the president’s battle, but is that of all Mexicans,” Calderon added.
The latest clashes hit the southern tourist state of Guerrero, in the town of Taxco, about 170km south of Mexico City, popular for its intricate silver handicrafts and jewelry.
Late last month a mass grave was also uncovered near the town, when 55 bodies dumped in an air shaft of an abandoned silver mine were found. It was 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 Tuesday’s shootout were loyal to a drug lord named Edgar Valdez, better known as “La Barbie,” the daily El Universal reported on its Web site, 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.
On Monday, more than 40 people were killed in separate attacks, including a prison riot between rival drug gangs in the northwestern city of Mazatlan which left 28 dead.
And Mexican authorities blamed the notorious “La Familia” drug cartel for a separate outbreak of violence on Monday when 12 police officers were killed in an ambush in western Michoacan state.
Police came under fire as a convoy of uniformed officers traveled by car to Mexico City. Police officials said several assailants were also killed in the shoot-out.
In another attack, a drug cartel kidnapped 12 federal police officers, decapitated them and dumped their bodies on a busy highway.
Michoacan is 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.
About 23,000 people have been killed in the country since the crackdown began in 2006.
Mexican authorities have slapped a limit of US$4,000 per month on bank deposits by individuals, aiming to thwart drug traffickers who use the US currency to stash away their illicit profits.
Officials also imposed a limit of US$7,000 for deposits by Mexican businesses making deposits in the currency.
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