13 Die in Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

A soldier stands guard at a crime scene with a covered-up body next to a crashed car in Yahualica Gonzalez Gallo August 15, 2010. Seven unidentified dead bodies were found scattered around the town on Sunday after shootings had been reported in different areas, according to local media.

Gunmen killed 13 people in separate incidents over the weekend in Mexico’s Guerrero and Jalisco states, police said.

Police found the bodies of seven men in Yahualica de Gonzalez Gallo, a town in the western state of Jalisco.

Coroner’s office personnel removed the bodies of the unidentified men from crime scenes in several neighborhoods in the small town located near the border with Zacatecas state.

Police stand near a burned car where the bodies of two burned people had been found on the outskirts of Yahualica Gonzalez Gallo August 15, 2010.

The motive for the shootout is not known, but several cells of the Los Zetas drug cartel operate in the area.

After several years as the armed wing of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, a band of Mexican special forces deserters turned hired guns, went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories.

Three bodies were found near an SUV in the Preparatoria neighborhood.

A body was discovered in an intersection in the El Rastro neighborhood near an automobile and another body was left in downtown Yahualica.

The bodies of two other handcuffed men were found in a burning SUV on the dirt road that leads to the town of Mexticacan, police said.

Several men were wounded in the shootout and apparently kidnapped by their rivals, a police commander told reporters.

Six men, meanwhile, were shot dead and another wounded in the Camino al Cielo section of Acapulco, a Pacific resort city in Guerrero state, the Public Safety Secretariat said.

The bodies of the six men, who ranged in age between 20 and 25, were found inside a wooden house.

A seventh man was found alive with a gunshot wound to the head and is in serious condition.

About 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on Mexico’s cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

More than 7,000 gangland killings have occurred so far this year in Mexico, Attorney General Arturo Chavez Chavez said last month.

The death toll for all of 2009 was 7,724.