http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01506.html

Four dead in Mexican jailbreak on US border

Reuters
Tuesday, June 13, 2006; 8:54 PM



NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Three prisoners and a visitor died on Tuesday when inmates armed with machine guns fought their way out of a jail in a violent Mexican city on the U.S. border, sparking a deadly gun battle.

Inmates carrying AR-15 assault rifles burst out of the federal jail in Nuevo Laredo, south of Laredo, Texas, exchanging fire with guards, prosecutors said.

Prosecutor Eduardo Anaya said sentries in a watch tower shot dead three fleeing inmates. A woman visitor was also killed in the cross-fire, and three others were wounded.

As many as six men escaped on foot through a school yard as the gun battle raged. They hijacked a truck and fled, later abandoning the vehicle on a highway south of the city.

It was not immediately clear how the prisoners obtained the arms at the jail, which holds prisoners for offenses ranging from minor crimes to drug-trafficking offenses and murder.

Nuevo Laredo is the center of a lucrative cross-border cocaine, marijuana and heroin trafficking route to Texas, which is currently being fought over by rival Mexican cartels.

So far this year, at least 128 people have been murdered in the city, most of them in a battle between the Gulf cartel of jailed kingpin Osiel Cardenas, and the Sinaloa cartel loyal to Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Last year, President Vicente Fox declared the "mother of all battles" against organized crime in Mexico, and sent troops to take over public security in the city.