Northern Mexico shootouts kill 2 police, 7 gunmen

Gunbattles between security forces and armed attackers have killed nine people in two states along the U.S. border, Mexican authorities said Thursday. The Navy says four attackers died in a gunbattle between marines and members of the Zetas drug gang in the town of San Carlos, in the border state of Tamaulipas. The Navy said in a press statement that a convoy of vehicles opened fire on a marine patrol. Marines detained four suspected gunmen — three of them Guatemalan citizens — and seized 14 rifles and over 3,600 weapons after the clash. And in the state of Coahuila, two police officers and three gunmen are dead in a shootout in Torreon, prosecutors said. In Ciudad Juarez, federal police detained an alleged gang member accused of participating in 11 killings. Suspect Luis Humberto Hernandez allegedly belonged to the "La Linea" gang allied with the Juarez drug cartel. Police said Hernandez relied on a network of lookouts to locate his victims, usually members of rival gangs...more