Drug cartel warfare worsens as 26 killed

MEXICO: Authorities said at least 26 people were killed yesterday in northern Mexico during a predawn gun battle between warring crime gangs, part of an escalation of deadly violence across the country.

Chihuahua state prosecutor’s spokesman Felix Gonzalez said the confrontation between armed groups broke out in the town of Las Varas around 5am.

For the next two hours, members of the La Linea gang squared off with a faction of the Sinaloa cartel, leaving more than two dozen people dead and several others wounded, he said.

The violence in Las Varas, about 400 kilometres southwest of the border city of Ciudad Juarez, comes days after a similar burst of bloodshed in neighbouring Sinaloa state.

Authorities said at least 30 people were killed there over the weekend; a firefight with police officers near the resort town of Mazatlan left 19 suspected cartel members dead.

Violence in Mexico has surged to record levels this year. There were 2186 homicide investigations opened in May, more than in any month since the government began publishing homicide statistics in the 1990s.

Analysts say violence is swelling as members of splintered drug cartels battle for territory.

A power vacuum emerged after this year’s extradition to the United States of Joaquin ‘‘El Chapo’’ Guzman, the former leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, and now his sons are battling for control with the sons of one of Guzman’s top lieutenants.

Meanwhile, a new criminal group, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, has been trying to assert control in bloody turf battles.

The fight against transnational criminal groups and regional security was the subject of a meeting yesterday between President Enrique Pena Nieto and US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

Although Kelly, like President Donald Trump, has pushed for more border security in an effort to stop the flow of drugs and migrants into the US, Mexico has repeatedly said that the US should be focused on reducing its demand for drugs. – LA Times