Drug Gangs Kill 11 in Mexico, Mutilate Bodies

Via Washington Post -

Mexican police found 11 bodies in an abandoned vehicle near the U.S. border on Thursday, some with their hands and legs cut off and left with threatening messages scrawled by suspected drug hit men.

The bodies of the men, who were shot to death, were found in the northwestern state of Sonora in a stolen SUV with Arizona plates, the state attorney general's office said.

A state attorney general's office spokesman said drug cartels were likely behind the attack, although he declined to give details about the messages left on the bodies.

The killings came a day after drug gangs shot up a police station in a nearby town as violence flared in the state dominated by Mexico's top trafficker, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Guzman's cartel, based in the neighboring coastal state of Sinaloa, is one of four powerful gangs whose battles for control of smuggling routes into the United States have killed 2,500 people this year. There were 6,300 drug-related killings in 2008.

Violence is also spilling into U.S. border states like California and Arizona, worrying Washington.

U.S. President Barack Obama visited Mexico City in April and promised to crack down on the flow of American weapons into Mexico that has helped drug gangs amass huge arsenals.