10 Die in Shootouts in Mexican Border City

Ten suspected criminals were killed in shootouts in Nuevo Laredo, a border city in northern Mexico, a city spokeswoman said. Soldiers, marines, state police and municipal police engaged armed subjects in gunfights early Saturday that lasted several hours, the Nuevo Laredo spokeswoman said. The shootouts started around 2:30 a.m. Saturday at kilometer 10 of the highway that leads from Nuevo Laredo, located across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, to the airport. Army troops encountered a convoy of gunmen on the airport road and came under fire. The soldiers engaged the gunmen, setting off a chase, the city spokeswoman said. Mexico registered 27,199 murders in 2011, or 24 per 100,000 people, the highest number since Calderon took office, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, or INEGI, said in a report released on Aug. 20. The Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, which was founded by human rights activist and poet Javier Sicilia, puts the death toll from Mexico’s drug war at 70,000...more