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.
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.
