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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2007 
Gunmen Kill Off-Duty Mexican Soldiers at Mall
 Robin Emmott - Reuters
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 |  | In recent days, suspected drug smugglers have dumped the beheaded or mutilated bodies of five people around the capital in what appear to be revenge killings for a cocaine seizure at the airport. |  | |
Monterrey, Mexico - Suspected hitmen killed three off-duty soldiers at a shopping mall in Mexico, the government said on Wednesday, bringing to at least 25 the number of military personnel slain in drug violence this year.
The men were shot in the back as they entered the mall in the normally quiet mining city of Torreon in Coahuila state near Texas on Tuesday afternoon, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
A member of Mexico's air force who was with the soldiers was shot and seriously wounded in the attack.
The gunmen escaped, the ministry said.
President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of troops to the front lines of his war against powerful drug cartels in Mexico.
Calderon says more than 15,000 people linked to organized crime, including drug capos, have been arrested in 2007, and the Mexican military has made record drug seizures.
But drug cartels still wield power, especially along the border with the United States, killing rivals, police chiefs, soldiers and recently a politician.
Some 2,500 people have died in sometimes gory Mexican drug violence this year and government officials predict the killings will continue in 2008.
In recent days, suspected drug smugglers have dumped the beheaded or mutilated bodies of five people around the capital in what appear to be revenge killings for a cocaine seizure at the airport.
The severed heads of two men who worked for a private customs firm were found near Mexico City airport on Saturday while their bodies appeared just outside the city.
One head had an index finger stuffed in its mouth and the other had a finger in its ear.
Mexico's attorney general said that over the weekend agents had seized half a tonne of cocaine found at the airport on a flight from Colombia.
Three other bodies, two of them headless and without index fingers, were found this week in Tlalnepantla on the edge of the city. The hands of the third victim had been chopped off. These bodies have not been identified.
"By the way they were killed, it leads us to believe they were informants or that (drug dealers) were trying to send a message," said Elena Cardenas, a spokeswoman for Tlalnepantla municipality. "'Listen, see, don't talk,' that's their motto."
(Additional reporting by Cyntia Barrera in Mexico City)
(Editing by Jason Lange and Xavier Briand) |
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