Four Killed in Drug Violence in Western Mexico

Suspected drug cartel enforcers killed four men and hung two of the victims’ bodies from a bridge in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, prosecutors said.

The state Attorney General’s Office said all four of the victims, none of whom were identified, bore signs of torture.

Two of the bodies were hung Friday afternoon from a bridge that spans a highway near the town of Vista Hermosa, not far from Michoacan’s border with Jalisco state.

Another victim whose throat had been slit was found dumped under the same bridge, while the fourth body was discovered floating in a river near the highway, prompting authorities to suspect a connection between the four homicides.

On that same highway, which links Michoacan and Jalisco, an armed commando allegedly carried out an attack Thursday night targeting the mayor of the Pacific coast town of Coahuayana.

Andres Cardenas Guerrero, a member of the governing National Action Party, or PAN, was traveling with an assistant identified as Pedro Cazares Torres in an official vehicle that was found abandoned on the highway with at least two bullet holes.

Hector Gomez Trujillo, the PAN’s chairman in Michoacan, declined to comment on the incident and the whereabouts of the mayor and his assistant remain unknown.

In another incident, suspected cartel gunmen set three SUVs ablaze in Marcos Castellanos, Michoacan – a town adjacent to Vista Hermosa – in retaliation for Friday’s arrests of several reputed members of the Jalisco Nueva Generation drug mob.

Coveted by drug gangs for its Pacific coastline and home to clandestine marijuana and opium poppy fields, Michoacan is a key entry point for South American cocaine, as well as chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs at laboratories tucked away in the mountains.

More than 80 homicides have been committed since the start of the year in the state, one of the flashpoints in a drug war that has left tens of thousands dead in recent years.

In another part of Mexico, suspected members of a criminal gang killed two and wounded another in a grenade and gunshot attack on a bar in the northern metropolis of Monterrey, officials said.

Three men carried out Friday night’s attack on the Bar Woman establishment on Monterrey’s west side, hurling a grenade and firing gunshots, the Nuevo Leon state Security Council said in a report.

The explosion killed one employee and left one customer dead and another injured, the report said.

Meanwhile, several recent clashes between authorities and suspected criminals have occurred in the nearby city of Saltillo, capital of Coahuila state.

That state’s Attorney General’s Office said two were wounded Friday afternoon when a gun battle erupted during a police pursuit of several suspects.