Mexican authorities announced Sunday the arrest of several suspects involved in the killing of nine members of a Mormon family early November. The sus
Mexican authorities announced Sunday the arrest of several suspects involved in the killing of nine members of a Mormon family early November.
The suspects were arrested in a joint operation Sunday of the armed forces, police and intelligence agents, the Office of Attorney General said in a statement.
Last month, another suspect living in Mexico City was arrested over the same charge, it added.
The office gave no details about the suspects on their identities, links to the killings or their exact number.
Early November, three women and six children belonging to a Mormon family were killed in the northwestern Sonora state by drug cartels.
Since the presidency last December, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has struggled to articulate a coherent fighting strategy against criminal groups, as they continue to maintain a strong and lethal grip over the Central American country.
Mexico has long been besieged by deadly violence with drug cartels and criminal gangs fighting for control of territories.
At least 14 killed in bloody gunfight in northern Mexico
Ten suspected cartel gunmen and four police were killed during a shootout on Saturday in a Mexican town near the U.S. border, days after U.S. President Donald Trump raised bilateral tensions by saying he would designate the gangs as terrorists.The government of the northern state of Coahuila said state police clashed at midday with a group of heavily armed gunmen riding in pickup trucks in the small town of Villa Union, about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the border city of Piedras Negras.Standing outside the Villa Union mayor’s bullet-ridden offices, Coahuila Governor Miguel Angel Riquelme told reporters the state had acted “decisively” to tackle the cartel henchmen. Four police were killed and six were injured, he said.The fighting went on for more than an hour, during which ten gunmen were killed, three of them by security forces in pursuit of the gang members, Riquelme said.At about noon, heavy gunfire began ringing out in Villa Union, and a convoy of armed pickup trucks could be seen moving around the town, according to video clips posted by social media users. Others showed plumes of smoke rising from the town.Reuters could not vouch for the authenticity of the images.An unspecified number of people were also missing, including some who were at the mayor’s office, the governor said.Riquelme said authorities had identified 14 vehicles involved in the attack and seized more than a dozen guns. The governor said he believed the gunmen were members of the Cartel of the Northeast, which is from Tamaulipas state to the east.The outbreak of violence occurred during a testing week for President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who on Friday said he would not accept any foreign intervention in Mexico to deal with violent criminal gangs after Trump’s comments.Lopez Obrador said Mexico would handle the problem, a view echoed by Riquelme as he spoke to reporters.”I don’t think that Mexico needs intervention. I think Mexico needs collaboration and cooperation,” said Riquelme, whose party is in opposition to Lopez Obrador. “We’re convinced that the state has the power to overcome the criminals.”In an interview aired on Tuesday, Trump said he planned to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations, sparking concerns the move could serve as a prelude to the United States trying to intervene unilaterally in Mexico.U.S. Attorney General William Barr is due to visit Mexico next week to discuss cooperation over security.Lopez Obrador took office a year ago pledging to pacify the country after more than a decade of gang-fueled violence.A series of recent security lapses has raised questions about the left-leaning administration’s strategy.Criticism has focused on the Nov. 4 massacre of nine women and children of U.S.-Mexican origin from Mormon communities in northern Mexico, and the armed forces’ release of a captured son of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman under pressure from cartel gunmen in the city of Culiacan.Coahuila has a history of gang violence, although the homicide total in the state that borders Texas is well below where it was seven years ago. National homicide figures are pushing record levels.
Nine Americans killed in Mexican ambush, Trump urges joint war on drug cartels
Gunmen killed nine women and children in the bloodiest attack on Americans in Mexico for years, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to offer to help the neighboring country wipe out drug cartels believed to be behind the ambush.All nine people killed in Monday’s daytime attack at the border of Chihuahua and Sonora belonged to the Mexican-American LeBaron family, members of a breakaway Mormon community that settled in northern Mexico’s hills and plains decades ago.A video posted on social media showed the charred and smoking remains of a vehicle riddled with bullet holes that was apparently carrying the victims on a dirt road when the attack occurred.”This is for the record,” says a male voice speaking English in an American accent, off camera, choking with emotion.”Nita and four of my grandchildren are burnt and shot up,” the man says, apparently referring to Rhonita Baron, one of the three women who died in the attack.Reuters could not independently verify the video.A relative, Julian LeBaron, called the incident a massacre and said some family members were burned alive.In a text message to Reuters he wrote that four boys, two girls and three women were killed. Several children who fled the attack were lost for hours in the countryside before being found, he said.He said it was unclear who carried out the attack.”We don’t know why, though they had received indirect threats. We don’t know who did it,” he told Reuters.Mexican Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said the nine, traveling in several SUVs, may have been victims of mistaken identity, given the high number of violent confrontations among warring drug gangs in the area. But the LeBaron extended family has often been in conflict with drug traffickers in Chihuahua and a relative of the victims said the killers surely knew who they were targeting.”We’ve been here for more than 50 years. There’s no-one who doesn’t know them. Whoever did this was aware. That’s the most terrifying,” said Alex LeBaron, a relative, in one of the villages inhabited by the extended family.All of the dead were U.S. citizens, he told Reuters, and most also held dual citizenship with Mexico. They were attacked while driving on backroads in a convoy of cars containing the women along with 14 children, he said. Some were headed for Tucson airport to collect relatives.In 2010, two members of the Chihuahua Mormon community, including one from the LeBaron family, were killed in apparent revenge after security forces tracked drug gang members. The Mormons had suffered widespread kidnappings before that.TIME TO ‘WAGE WAR’ – TRUMP”This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” Donald Trump said in a tweet reacting to the massacre.Later, he and Lopez Obrador spoke by phone, with the U.S. president offering help to ensure the perpetrators face justice. The Mexican leader said he would ensure justice was done.Prior to the call, Lopez Obrador rejected what he called any foreign government intervention.Mexico has used its military in a war on drug cartels since 2006. Despite the arrest or killing of leading traffickers, the campaign has not succeeded in reducing drug violence and has led to more killings as criminal groups fight among themselves.The government has registered more than 250,000 homicides in the last dozen years, most of them related to the drug war.