Violence continues unabated in Mexico: security forces gun down 13 gunmen in Sinaloa

Mexican cartel violence is not letting up in Mexico. After the shock produced in the Aztec country by the murder of the mayor of Uruapan (Michoacan), Carlos Manzo, during a rally, the Secretary of Security, Omar Garcia Harfuch, reported Monday that security forces had gunned down 13 gunmen and detained four others in Sinaloa.

The shootout took place around 12:45 p.m. local time in the municipality of Guasave. Officers rescued nine kidnapped individuals and seized seven vehicles, assault rifles, and tactical gear, the official said on X.

The slain criminals attacked a patrol of law enforcement agents

Garcia Harfuch detailed that the security personnel "were attacked by an armed group hiding under a bridge" when carrying out patrols in the community of La Brecha, in Guasave, which provoked "the immediate response" of the agents.

Both the detainees and the seized objects were handed over to the Mexican attorney general's office, the secretary added.

Sinaloa cartel's bloody civil war already leaves 1,700 dead and 2,000 missing

Sinaloa, located on the Pacific coast, has been rocked for more than a year by a violent conflict between factions of a powerful local cartel that has left at least 1,700 people killed, 57 of them minors, and nearly 2,000 missing.

The Sinaloa cartel's internecine warfare began after the capture of Ismael El Mayo Zambada the historic leader of the criminal group, who was betrayed and taken to the United States in July 2024 by a son of his former partner, Joaquín Chapo Guzmán.

Guzman has been serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison since 2019.

The cartel is singled out by Washington as one of the main culprits in the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that kills thousands of Americans each year, for which it was designated last February as a "foreign terrorist organization."