16 gunmen killed in Mexico clashes, 3 police officers injured by car bomb amid escalating cartel violence

Multiple clashes Thursday between Mexican security forces and suspected criminals killed at least 16 people in the violence-wracked southern state of Guerrero, the military said, the same day a car bomb left outside a police station in western Mexico injured three officers. .

An initial skirmish took place in the town of Tecpan de Galeana, near the Pacific coast, killing two and wounding four.

Later, security forces fought with a criminal group that attacked a military base in the same area, killing 14 armed men, according to a police statement. SEDENA National Defense Secretariat.

Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, has endured years of violence linked to wars between cartels battling for control over drug production and trafficking.

Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in the state, home to the seaside resort of Acapulco, a former playground of the rich and famous that is now plagued by crime.

In early October, the mayor of the capital of Guerrero was assassinated less than a week after taking office his beheading and caused outrage across the country calls for more protection.

Further north, in Guanajuato state, a car bomb exploded outside a police station on Thursday, wounding three officers, local officials said.

The blast damaged the police station, four houses and several homes, but police officers were the only people injured, the department said.

Officials said another explosion, apparently a second car bomb, occurred in the nearby town of Jerecuaro. Although no one was injured, the force of that second blast was enough to blow the tiled roof off a building, blacken the facades of surrounding stores and set a police pickup truck on fire.

The near-simultaneous attacks in two different cities, about half an hour apart, indicated the involvement of drug cartels that have been waging bloody battles in Guanajuato for years.

The central region is a thriving industrial center and home to several popular tourist destinations, but is now also considered Mexico’s most violent state.

On October 4, the bodies of twelve slain police officers were found in different parts of Salamanca, a city in Guanajuato.

Cartel wars persist

Officials say the violence in the state stems from a conflict between the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation Cartelone of the most powerful in all of Mexico.

“I want to be very emphatic: our priority is the pacification of Guanajuato, and we will accomplish this complex task together,” said Governor Libia Garcia. said on social media after Thursday’s attack.

She said an air and ground operation involving state security forces had been launched to support municipal police.

Mexico has suffered more than 450,000 drug-related killings since the government began using the military to fight the cartels in 2006.

President Claudia Sheinbaumwho took office on October 1, has pledged to continue her predecessor’s ‘hugs, not bullets’ strategy of using social policies to tackle crime at its roots, while making better use of intelligence.

“The war on drugs will not return,” she said, referring to the US-backed offensive launched in 2006.

The northwestern cartel stronghold of Sinaloa has also seen a spike in violence since the drug lord’s arrest in July Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in the United States. Last month he did pleaded not guilty in a US drug trafficking case in which he is accused of murder plots and ordering torture.

Mexican troops were shot dead on Monday 19 suspected members of the Sinaloa Cartel after he was attacked.

Zambada’s capture causes mutual conflict between his supporters and gunmen loyal to jailed cartel founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and his sons.

Zambada accused Joaquin Guzman Lopez— one of El Chapo’s sons who led a faction of the cartel known as the ‘Chapitos’ — to kidnap him and hand him over to U.S. law enforcement.

According to an indictment unsealed last year by the U.S. Department of Justice, the “Chapitos” and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution and hot chili peppers to torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers”. El Chapo’s sons were among 28 members of the Sinaloa cartel indicted in a major investigation into fentanyl trafficking announced in April 2023.

El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado convicted in 2019 on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related crimes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.