13 die in Mexico border shootouts
Army in Tijuana on high alert after deadly shootouts leave 9 wounded
MSNBC News Services
updated 6:18 p.m. ET, Sat., April. 26, 2008

TIJUANA, Mexico - Massive, running gunbattles broke out between suspected drug traffickers on the streets of this violent border city Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding nine, law enforcement officials said.

Dead bodies scattered along the road marked one of the deadliest shootouts in Mexico's three-year-old drug warfare.

All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, said Rommel Moreno, the attorney general of Baja California state, where Tijuana is located.

Two of the dead were believed to be senior hit men for the Arellano Felix cartel and were identified by the large gold rings on their fingers. The rings carried the icon of Saint Death, a ghoulish figure that gangsters believe protects them, police said.

"Today shows we are facing a terrible war never seen before on the (U.S.-Mexico) border," Moreno said during a news conference.

Police cordoned off all the surrounding roads, forcing workers at a nearby maquiladora to walk through the crime scene to get to work.

"Another shootout," said a woman who gave her name only as Lisa. "There are just too many, we are so afraid."


Others suspects hurt in gang warfare
Eight suspects and one federal police officer were injured, said Agustin Perez Aguilar, a spokesman for the state public safety department. The suspects are being held on suspicion of weapons possession among other possible charges.

Police recovered 21 vehicles, many with bullet holes or U.S. license plates, and a total of 54 guns at various points in the city where the battles broke out in the pre-dawn hours, Perez Aguilar said.

At one point, the alleged traffickers were riding through heavily populated areas of the city, firing at one another as they drove and being chased by the military, state and local police.

"Evidently this is a confrontation between gangs," Moreno told reporters.

The violence began on a busy, well-traveled avenue, when traffickers began firing at each other from vehicles, leaving seven dead, Moreno said.

Tijuana's deadly turf
The first shootout apparently sparked two additional gunbattles in other areas of the city, claiming three victims altogether. Two more men were shot to death in a fourth confrontation with police outside a local hospital. The body of a third man, who police believe was involved in one of the confrontations, was also found at the hospital.

Drug gangs have staged a series of bloody shootouts and assassinations in Tijuana in recent years as part of running turf battles for control of lucrative trafficking routes.

In January, eight people died in a gunbattle at a Tijuana safe-house apparently used by drug hit men to hold kidnapped rivals. In that confrontation, hit men holed up inside the house battled police and soldiers with automatic weapons for three hours.

Mexico's drug battles
Heavily armed federal police patrolled across Tijuana following the gunfight. Soldiers and police guarded the city's main hospital where the wounded were being treated to prevent any attempt by drug gangs to pull them out.

Baja California state police chief Daniel de la Rosa said fresh troops from Mexico City were arriving in Tijuana, which borders San Diego, California.

President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to Tijuana and Baja California state since taking office in December 2006. Some 25,000 soldiers and federal police are deployed to fight cartels in drug hot spots across Mexico.

The army in Tijuana said it was on high alert for reprisals against soldiers and federal police following the shootout and the ensuing arrests.

"The risk of attacks against our agents after an event like this is extremely high," said Lt. Col Julian Leyzaola, Tijuana's police chief.

The Arellano Felix gang was long the dominant drug-trafficking organization in Tijuana, smuggling drugs into California. Recently the group has been under attack from a rival gang from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

This report contains information from The Associated Press and Reuters.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24328980/