Army finds mass graves in Mexico
July 16th, 2010 - 1:03 pm ICT by IANSMonterrey (Mexico), July 16 (IANS/EFE) Army troops found five mass graves, barrels containing bones and other human remains at an automotive junkyard outside Monterrey, the capital of the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, and arrested a suspect, the Defense Secretariat said.
An anonymous caller told authorities that “armed people in vehicles” were in the La Silla industrial park in the city of Guadalupe and “military personnel went to verify the information”, the secretariat said.
Soldiers found two stolen vehicles at Gruas Monterrey and detected “a strong foul odour coming from some nearby barrels, which had some holes apparently made by firearms”, the secretariat said.
The barrels contained “bones and human flesh dissolved in some type of acid”, the secretariat said.
Specialists from the Nuevo Leon Attorney General’s Office have found at least six bodies buried at the junkyard, the Defense Secretariat said.
Army troops, meanwhile, arrested a woman and seized 12 rifles, a grenade launcher, a rocket launcher, hand grenades, handguns and 7,000 rounds of different types of ammunition in a separate operation at a safe house located 120 km south of the city of Linares, the Defense Secretariat said.
Mexico’s drug cartels often use mass graves in remote locations to dispose of the bodies of slain enemies and kidnapping victims.
Nuevo Leon and neighbouring Tamaulipas state have been dealing with a wave of violence unleashed by drug traffickers battling for control of smuggling routes into the US.
The violence has intensified in the two border states since the appearance in February in Monterrey of giant banners heralding an alliance of the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia Michoacana drug cartels against Los Zetas, a band of Mexican special forces deserters.
After several years as the armed wing of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories.
The cartels arrayed against Los Zetas blame the group’s involvement in kidnappings, armed robbery and extortion for discrediting “true drug traffickers” in the eyes of ordinary Mexicans willing to tolerate the illicit trade as long as the gangs stuck to their own unwritten rule against harming innocents.
–IANS/EFE
rd/mj
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Tags: anonymous caller, army troops, border states, city of guadalupe, drug business, drug cartels, drug traffickers, foul odour, giant banners, grenade launcher, gulf cartel, hand grenades, human flesh, la familia michoacana, los zetas, mass graves, monterrey mexico, rocket launcher, six bodies, tamaulipas state