Sixteen bodies found in truck in western Mexico

The bodies of 16 people - apparently tortured and shot to death - were found on 10 September in a large truck outside Coyuca de Catalán, a municipality bordering the western states of Guerrero and Michoacán, following a suspected settling of accounts between criminal gangs, El Universal reported on 11 September. Messages left on the scene suggested the victims belonged to one cartel the Knights Templar (Los Caballeros Templarios) and were killed by rivals from La Familia Michoacana. Guerrero's state governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero said in response that he would ask for more troops at a meeting scheduled for 11 September with Mexico's interior minister Alejandro Poiré Romero, and questioned the impact of an ongoing anti-crime operation in western Mexico. Troops and police launched an operation on 23 July to reduce crime in nine districts of the area termed Tierra Caliente in Michoacán. This appears not to have worked; an operation spokesman was cited as qualifying the month of August in Michoacán as the most violent in 2012.