Six beheadings amid wave of violence in Mexico
Pastor Dale Morgan
Six beheadings amid wave of violence in Mexico*
AFP - Saturday, May 24
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) - - Mexican police found six severed heads
Friday, including four gruesomely left in coolers on a roadside, amid a
wave of drug-related violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in
recent months.
"We found four human heads in as many coolers ... and the remains have
not yet been identified," said a statement from the office of the
governor of Durango state.
The remains were discovered six kilometers (four miles) from the state
capital of Durango, along the same road where a shootout on Tuesday left
eight gunmen dead.
Next to the severed heads were "intimidating and threatening messages"
aimed at the leaders of drug cartels, the statement said.
The violence that has gripped Mexico in recent weeks -- including the
murders of several top law enforcement officials -- is believed to be
mostly related to the government's stepped up fight against drug
trafficking.
To the north in Ciudad Juarez, a town across the border from the United
States, 10 more bodies were found in various locations, including two
whose heads had been cut off and left in plastic bags, a Chihuahua state
official said.
Menacing messages aimed at druglords including Joaquin Guzman, leader of
the powerful Sinaloa cartel, were left alongside corpses in two of the
Ciudad Juarez locations.
Rival drug gangs battling for control of their turf have triggered a
surge in bloodshed in the past few weeks in this city and nearby towns,
with 398 murders this year alone in Ciudad Juarez, according to officials.
At stake is access to the world's biggest market for narcotics, most of
which slip through the border to the United States.