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Mexico questions 6 in police, civilian beheadings

Police showed up after kidnap report; say drug cartel behind killings

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- Mexican authorities are questioning six people they believe are linked to or have information on this week's decapitation murders of three police officers and a civilian in Rosarito Beach, according to the Baja California, Mexico, attorney general's office.

Police officers Ismael Arellano Torres, 36; Jesus Hernandez Ballesteros, 42; and Benjamén Fabian Ventura, 35; were killed after a large group of armed men -- possibly as many as 100 -- surrounded their cars Tuesday night in a remote part of the city, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said.

The officers were responding to a report of a possible kidnapping.

The mutilated bodies of the three officers and an unidentified civilian wrapped in blankets bound with tape were discovered Wednesday morning in an empty lot, police said. Police later located the four heads in the border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego.



'Drug war frenzy'



Experts said the attack bears the trademark of killings committed by increasingly violent drug cartels that are battling to control key smuggling routes.

"It's a disturbing manifestation of the latest drug war frenzy. The militarization of the drug war in many ways on the side of law enforcement has corresponded with the militarization of tactics and personnel on the criminal side," said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

A witness told police that about 100 men, some wearing uniforms resembling those of Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation, or AFI, were at the scene of the alleged kidnapping when the officers showed up, said a spokesman with the attorney general's office in the state of Baja California, where Rosarito is located. The person asked not to be identified because he is not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation.

The federal attorney general's office in Baja California said in a press release that no officers were involved in the disappearance of the four men. The office said it has opened an investigation to determine who the men impersonating AFI agents were.



Latest of similar attacks



The Rosarito killings are the latest in a series of attacks on law enforcement officials by suspected drug traffickers, who have formed large squads of heavily armed assailants.

Last month, three men armed with AK-47s burst into the Mexican federal attorney general's office in Tijuana and shot two agents, killing one.

In April, nearly two dozen heavily armed men tried to assassinate Baja California's top-ranking public safety official on a Mexicali street.

In December, gunmen attacked the Tijuana home of a state police commander and killed two of his bodyguards.

And in October, gunmen fired more than 50 bullets at the car of Tijuana's homicide chief in an unsuccessful assassination attempt.