Fifteen reported killed around Mexico

Some 15 people were reported shot or found dead in incidents around Mexico on 11-13 December, including a pregnant woman shot with four others in a restaurant in northern Mexico. Gunmen were said to have entered a restaurant in Nuevo Laredo on the US frontier, and shot dead five employees including the woman, Proceso reported on 13 December. Four gunmen were shot dead by the army in the western state of Guerrero, reportedly after they began shooting at troops who ordered them stop on a motorway early on 13 December, the commander of the Ninth Military Region Guillermo Moreno Serrano was reported as saying. Police separately shot dead a suspect and arrested two after a shootout on 13 December in the district of Calera in the north-central state of Zacatecas, Milenio reported. The suspects began shooting at one or more police cars driving toward Fresnillo, a city north of Calera, the Zacatecas Public Security chief declared. Soldiers freed a kidnapped woman in Fresnillo on 12 December and arrested four presumed kidnappers, after another woman they held held escaped and informed the police, Milenio reported on 14 December. On 13 December police freed a 20-year-old man held by a gang of three in the western district of Tequila, Milenio and Notimex reported. Also on 13 December, the governor of the state of Chihuahua César Duarte Jáquez ruled out that troops could help police patrol the streets of Ciudad Juárez in his state as announced earlier by a local army commander. Duarte said troops in the city "only provoke tensions in society" and the last time soldiers patrolled Juárez the city lived a "war siege," Proceso reported. It was up to state and municipal authorities to fight crime, he said, using intelligence work and the "clear" pursuit of crimes.