Posted on 09/17/2010 12:59:56 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — The explosion of narco violence south of the Texas border continued unabated through this country's independence day.
In Nuevo León and Tamaulipas to the east, running highway gunbattles flared Thursday as Mexican army troops chased gunmen — who had been intimidating and extorting motorists at a roadblock they'd set up — to a nearby ranch where they sought refuge.
At least three different gunbattles over several miles must have stunned travelers caught on the highways amid the firefight.
The battles that started at the roadblock left 22 gunmen dead, Mexico's Defense Ministry said in a statement late Thursday. At least one soldier was injured.
Four more deaths were reported Thursday in Juárez, including a 21-year-old photo intern for El Diario de Juárez, the leading daily newspaper in Mexico's biggest border city. On Wednesday, nine people were slain here.
The bloody highway gunfire between soldiers and suspected traffickers broke out in General Treviño, 62 miles east of Monterrey, at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday and continued for two hours before ending in Ciudad Mier in Tamaulipas, 10 miles west of the Rio Grande Valley town of Roma, the Defense Ministry statement said.
Sources said the gunmen were believed to have been collecting “tolls” along a drug corridor connecting Monterrey to sparsely populated areas along the border.
One report said soldiers responded to an anonymous call reporting the armed men and that triggered the shootout.
The soldiers freed three men held at a ranch by the gunmen and captured 18 assault rifles, ammunition and seven light trucks, some painted to resemble military vehicles, the Defense Ministry statement said.
Sources painted an even more dramatic picture of the battle, saying it lasted seven hours in all.
They said two more clashes followed the initial shootout, with hovering military helicopters joining the fray, leaving three sites littered with bullet-ridden bodies, mangled vehicles, spent ammunition and grenade fragments.
Abandoned vehicles contained arsenals of assault rifles, ammunition, grenades, cartridge belts and bullet-resistant vests.
The final shootout took place down the road from a recent massacre at a ranch that left 27 gunmen dead in Ciudad Mier on Sept. 2.
On Monday, 12 people reportedly were killed in a shootout between rival drug gangs in Padilla, near Ciudad Victoria, the capital city of Tamaulipas.
Five people died in a shootout there last week.
In Juárez on Thursday, Diario employee Carlos Santiago was shot and killed while driving through the parking lot of Rio Grande Mall on a busy thoroughfare lined with upscale department stores and American fast food outlets, two miles from the international bridge. A second young photo intern was wounded but escaped.
The killing came almost two years after another Diario journalist, Armando Rodriguez, was shot and killed.
Police and Diario journalists said they had no idea what provoked the attack.
An hour later, three people in a white Nissan were shot and killed a few blocks away from the mall. Again, police said they had no theory on the slaying.
The four killings brought the total for September in Juárez to 154 and counting.
More than 2,190 people have been killed this year in Juárez, making it the most dangerous city in the hemisphere.
The intensifying violence comes as Mexico celebrates two major milestones — the 200th anniversary of its declaration of independence from Spain and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution.
...the more violent Mexico becomes, the bigger problem we’ll have with people fleeing to our side of the border...remember all the ‘boat people’ after Vietnam fell?....well, wait til we get hit with a tsunami of ‘foot people’
Blimey! Ay, carrajo!
A Saracen and an FV432!
selfping
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