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2008-12-01 07:10:22
By MARIANA MARTINEZ, Associated Press Writer Mariana Martinez, Associated Press
Writer Sun Nov 30, 9:33 pm ET
TIJUANA, Mexico The bodies of nine decapitated men were found in a vacant lot
in Tijuana Sunday, part of a wave of violence that claimed at least 23 lives
over the weekend in this border city plagued by warring traffickers,
authorities said.
The heads were discovered in plastic bags near the bodies in a poor
neighborhood of Tijuana, across from San Diego, Baja California state police
said in a statement. Three police identification cards were also found at the
site.
The statement gave no motive for the killings, but they came as Mexico's drug
cartels wage a bloody fight for smuggling routes and against government forces,
dumping beheaded bodies onto streets, carrying out massacres and even tossing
grenades into a crowd of Independence Day revelers an attack that killed
eight people in September.
More than 4,000 people have died so far this year in drug-related violence in
Mexico.
Across Tijuana on Sunday, attacks by gunmen killed five people in addition to
the nine beheaded bodies.
State police said nine more people were killed in attacks on Saturday. In one,
gunmen killed a 4-year-old child in an attack on a grocery store.
Baja California has suffered a rising wave of homicides, which officials blame
on a struggle between rival cells of the Arellano-Felix drug cartel.
The Arellano Felix cartel emerged in the 1980s as a drug trafficking powerhouse
across the U.S. border from San Diego, but has been weakened in recent years as
leaders were killed or captured.
Last month, police arrested Eduardo Arellano Felix, the alleged leader of the
cartel. Authorities say his nephew, Luis Fernando Sanchez Arellano, has taken
over the cartel's operations and is fighting contenders.
President Felipe Calderon on Sunday vowed his government would never negotiate
with drug lords no matter how much the violence escalates.
Since taking office on Dec. 1, 2006, Calderon has sent more than 20,000
soldiers to battle drug trafficking across Mexico, helping to seize of 70 tons
of cocaine and 3,700 tons of marijuana, he said.
"We know that the results are far from what society demands, but that's why
we'll keep fighting these criminals across the country," Calderon told a
meeting on Sunday marking his first two years in office.