Over 20 reported killed, found dead in Mexico

The review Proceso put the death toll from presumed criminal incidents in Mexico from late 28 January through 29 January at 16; the dead included suspected criminals, policemen, unidentified civilians and an 11-year-old girl, earlier reported as kidnapped and found dead in the district of Tecomán in the western state of Colima. Five others were found in ditches or makeshift graves that day in the north-central state of Zacatecas, in the districts of Noria de Ángeles and Sombrerete, Proceso reported on 29 January. The number excluded the group of musicians kidnapped early on 25 January in the northern state of Nuevo León and whose bodies were found days later on an estate. Seventeen members of Kombo Kolombia were now believed to have been massacred, while police were interrogating one survivor to find out about the conditions and motives of the killings, Proceso reported. Separately authorities arrested on 29 January 24 people including 14 foreign nationals, described as forming an extortion and kidnapping gang that operated in northern Mexico; the gang called itself Defenders of Christ, Proceso reported. The group, headed by a Venezuelan who arrived in Mexico as a tourist in 2006, reportedly operated in the northern district of Torreón and the north-eastern district of Nuevo Laredo near the US frontier. The suspects were detained on a road between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey, after relatives of their victims gave information to police.

A dozen killed around Mexico

About a dozen people were killed or found dead in recent days in apparent criminal incidents around Mexico. Six of these were found dead in several districts of the central Estado de México on 30 December, Milenio reported. The daily reported a shooting death in Mexico City on 30 December and another late on 29 December in the northern city of Monterrey. That victim was shot dead after armed men burst into a house party; 11 were injured in that attack, Milenio reported. Three were found dead on 28 December in the Sierra Tarahumara, the somewhat lawless countryside of the northern state of Chihuahua, including a 16-year-old apparently shot in the neck. Four others were injured in gun attacks in two different parts of the state that day, Proceso reported. State police separately arrested eight men including a municipal policeman on 28 December in the north-western city of Ciudad Obregón; they were caught while driving with a private arsenal including AK-47 assault rifles, Proceso reported, citing Notimex. Five suspected kidnappers were arrested on 30 December in the north-eastern city of Nuevo Laredo, apparently while planning to kidnap a local businessman who called police to say he had been followed for days. Arms, ammunition and hand-grenades were confiscated from the gang that included a 15-year-old; police said the group confessed to having carried out several kidnappings in the area, Milenio reported.

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.

Troops shoot dead 16 gunmen around Mexico

Mexican soldiers shot dead six suspected criminals who reportedly fired on them in two incidents on 14 October, in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas. The attacks occurred in the districts of San Fernando and Nuevo Laredo, Proceso reported. In Pánuco in the east-coast state of Veracruz on 13 October, troops shot dead 10 suspected gangsters who also reportedly had fired on them; arms and ammunition were confiscated, Proceso reported on 14 October. It reported separately that a "young man" was shot dead in a "marginal" area of the port of Veracruz; the victim was described as having heavily tatooed legs. In northern Mexico, a man detained for kidnapping was "beaten and burned" to death in a prison in Ciudad Juárez, hours after being sent there from Veracruz where he had been arrested, Proceso reported on 14 October. The 40-year-old was detained on 9 October in the district of Emiliano Zapata in Veracruz, with five suspected members of a kidnapping gang.

Seven police officials killed around Mexico

Three security officials of the state of Tamaulipas were found dead in a car on 19 September in Nuevo Laredo by the US frontier, El Universal reported on 21 September. The three worked for the Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat or police authority: they were its Police Strategy chief, the Armament officer and the head of Analysis, the state judiciary declared. On 20 September, three plainclothes policemen were shot dead outside a bank in Gómez Palacio, in the northern state of Durango, El Universal reported the next day. The policemen were gunned down from a convoy of three cars driving past; they were from the Estado de México, the state outside Mexico City. A municipal policeman was separately shot dead at an unspecified date in Atlahucan in the south-central sate of Morelos, the daily reported, citing declarations by the prosecutor-general's office. Also on 20 September three gunmen were killed in a shootout with police commandos in Piedras Negras by the US frontier, El Universal reported. Autorities were checking to ascertain if they were among 132 convicts who escaped from the Piedras Negras state prison on 17 September.