Ciudad Juarez: A string of attacks on Mexico`s northern border left 17 dead, including one headless body among live corpses dumped in a truck in Ciudad Juarez, police said.
The violent city across the border from El Paso, Texas, saw 14 killed in the latest attacks suspected to be linked to organised crime, authorities said.
The bodies of five youths were found in a van parked on a main road early yesterday, with the head of one corpse lying in a plastic bag under the vehicle`s hood, the local Security Ministry said.
Police said they found three other bodies overnight Tuesday in another van that contained blood stains and bullet marks, also in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico`s most violent city of
1.3 million people.
Nine others died in separate attacks in the city and three other towns in the northern Chihuahua state, where drug cartels are fighting each other and security forces over key trafficking routes into the United States.
Some 9,600 people have died in suspected drug violence since the start of 2008, mainly in northern border areas, according to government and news reports.
President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime, involving more than 36,000 troops dispatched across the country, after he came to power in a disputed election in December 2006.
Bureau Report
