Mexico
gunfight kills 43 as government hits gang hard
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[May 23, 2015]
By Alexandra Alper
ZAMORA, Mexico (Reuters) - Government
security forces killed 42 suspected drug cartel henchmen and suffered
one fatality in a firefight in western Mexico on Friday, an official
said, one of the bloodiest shootouts in a decade of gang violence
wracking the country.
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National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said one
federal policeman died and another was injured in the three hour
battle on a ranch just inside the Michoacan state border with
Jalisco, home of Guadalajara, Mexico's second-biggest city.
The death toll was one of the heaviest to hit Mexico since President
Enrique Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 pledging to put an
end to years of gangland violence that have claimed more than
100,000 lives since 2007 alone.
Government officials said the 42 killed by security forces near the
town of Tanhuato were suspected members of the Jalisco New
Generation (JNG) cartel, a gang based in the neighboring state that
has seriously undermined Pena Nieto's pledge.
The gunfight began after security forces alerted to an "invasion" of
the ranch approached the 112 hectare property and were fired upon by
a group of armed men, Rubido said.
After calling in air and ground support, government forces ground
down their opponents with the aid of a helicopter, in the end
capturing three suspected gang members and seizing a grenade
launcher and 39 guns of varying calibers, he added.
Earlier, a government official told Reuters that two federal police
had died in the exchanges near Tanhuato, where a week ago, federal
forces replaced local police after the assassination of a candidate
for mayor in a nearby town.
Rubido said officials from the national human rights commission
(CNDH) had been sent to the ranch, where the number of dead was the
highest in any clash between the government and suspected gangsters
since a controversial incident last June.
Then, the government first reported that 22 gang members were killed
in a shootout with soldiers in central Mexico. However, subsequent
investigations showed that more than half of the dead had been
executed, embarrassing the government.
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ELECTION LOOMS
Jalisco is one of the engines of the Mexican economy, but the
state's southern border turned into a battleground between the JNG
and the Michoacan-based Knights Templars, a gang whose leadership
has been shattered over the past 18 months.
Capitalizing on the Templars' losses, the JNG has become the biggest
threat to the government, killing at least 20 police since March. On
May 1, its gunmen shot down an army helicopter in southwestern
Jalisco, claiming the lives of six military personnel.
The gang also set vehicles, banks and gas stations ablaze around
Guadalajara in a series of concerted attacks that day, shaking
confidence in the federal government's ability to contain the
violence ahead of mid-term elections on June 7.
Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party hopes to
defend the slim majority it and its allies have in the lower house
of Congress, with polls suggesting it could.
(Additional reporting by Dave Graham, Lizbeth Diaz, Ana Isabel
Martinez, Anahi Rama and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Dan
Grebler, Lisa Shumaker, Ken Wills and Michael Perry)
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