CIUDAD JUAREZ – Suspected drug hitmen in Mexico killed a top prosecutor, murdered 21 people in a shootout and dumped a severed head outside the house of a mayoral candidate days before elections, authorities said.
The violence unfolded in two states just south of the US border and was the latest sign Mexico’s drug war is growing more intense.
Gunmen killed Sandra Salas, a deputy prosecutor for the northern state of Chihuahua in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday night as she was being driven by bodyguards, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said.
Then, on Thursday, unidentified men also left a head outside the house of the favourite for Ciudad Juarez mayor, Hector Murgia, running for Mexico’s main opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party before the vote in 12 states on Sunday.
President Felipe Calderon is under mounting pressure to control escalating drug violence that worries Washington, scares off tourists and is forcing some US-owned factories to freeze investment plans.
Two drug gangs fought on a desert highway early on Thursday in a shootout that left 21 people dead in Sonora, said Jose Larrinaga, a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office: “It happened 20km from the US border.”
He said investigators don’t know what triggered the shootout, but cartels routinely battle for the smuggling routes to get cocaine into the US. – (Reuters)