At least 23 bodies were found in two neighboring states in western Mexico where drug cartels, vigilantes and security forces have been fighting for much of the year, authorities said on Saturday.
The Michoacan State Prosecutor’s Office said that nine bodies — hands bound and shot — were found on an abandoned property near the town of Buenavista Tomatlan along with a sign indicating that they may have been members of the Knights Templar cartel.
The remote area near the Jalisco State border has suffered a wave of violence for most of the year, as self-defense groups have risen up to battle the Knights Templar, which controls the territory through killings and extortion.
Authorities say some of these groups are supported by a rival cartel, Jalisco New Generation, which is also fighting the Knights Templar. The groups deny that.
The sign found next to the bodies read: “For those who continue to support the Knights Templar, we are here, united,” prosecutor’s spokesman Alejandro Arellano said.
The note was signed with the initials of the New Generation, as well as the initials GC, indicating a community-based, self-defense group.
The government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto sent thousands of troops and federal police to the area in May to regain control of the state. While residents initially cheered the arrival and some self-defense groups agreed to put down their arms, the calm was short-lived.
Even as the government claims that killings across Mexico are down, it has struggled to come up with an effective strategy for Michoacan and neighboring Guerrero State, an area known as Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land, for its climate.
The government’s response so far has mirrored that of Pena Nieto’s predecessor, former Mexican president Felipe Calderon, who started his drug offensive as president by sending troops to Michoacan in 2006 and periodically thereafter, with little result.
The Knights Templar launched a coordinated attack on federal police in Michoacan last month, killing at least four officers and wounding at least five more.
They also killed one of Mexico’s highest-ranking navy officers and a bodyguard last month when they ventured onto a local road in Michoacan to get around a highway roadblock.
At about the same time, residents in Guerrero were forced to flee their villages because of drug violence and self-defense forces formed in some parts of the state.
Authorities in Guerrero on Saturday said they found 14 bodies, eight in San Miguel Totolapan in Tierra Caliente and six in a mass grave near the colonial tourist town of Taxco.
The state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that five of the bodies in San Miguel Totolapan were found in the back of a Ford pick-up in military-style dress and with heavy arms and munitions, including a grenade. The statement said three more young men were found shot to death in the same town, but did not specify where.
In Taxco, authorities discovered the remains of six people, the skeletal remains of three and three more corpses in a state of advanced decay, according to state government spokesman Jose Villanueva Manzanarez.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS