MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas – Two Gulf Cartel gunmen died this week during a fierce gun battle with Tamaulipas State Police Officers. Local authorities have remained silent about the shootout.

The shootout took place this week in the neighborhood known as Esperanza when a group of gunmen riding in GMC pickup fired at a convoy of Tamaulipas police officers. Authorities fought off the attack, setting off a high-speed chase that ended near a water store. Two gunmen managed to run away as authorities collected the bodies of two other gunmen who died during the gun battle. Numerous police vehicles sustained heavy damage from gunfire during the shootout. It appears no police officers were shot during the attack.

While government officials have not publicly identified the gunmen, law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart News that the two gunmen are part of the Gulf Cartel faction called Ciclones. In the border city of Matamoros, the Gulf Cartel controls not only the local distribution and smuggling of drugs into the U.S. but also the human smuggling operations in the region as well as the theft of fuel.

The shootout is the latest in a series of violent clashes as Gulf Cartel gunmen continue to patrol the streets of Matamoros. The patrols are part of their ongoing turf war with a rival faction of the Gulf Cartel that operates out of the border city of Reynosa, immediately south of McAllen, Texas.

The months of constant fighting between the two rival factions led not only to countless deaths and murders but also to the ongoing need for cartel gunmen to roam the streets looking for their rivals. When those gunmen encounter law enforcement convoys more violence ensues.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart News traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Tamaulipas.