Cartel gunmen attacked two municipalities in Chihuahua this past Sunday, leaving eight dead according to the state attorney general’s office.
Both towns are located northwest of the state capital in an area experiencing heavy cartel activity, according to local media reports.
The cartel gunmen entered the community of Ignacio Zaragoza at approximately 5 am and began burning houses, vehicles, and businesses–targeting those that belonged to local political leaders, an attorney general press release stated. A total of six structures were damaged or destroyed. Gunmen then burst into the home of a PRD candidate for city council, Liliana Garcia, and kidnapped her.
Upon the arrival of state and federal police, they discovered three deceased victims in a house that had been set ablaze. Responding investigators later discovered a murdered Garcia in a stream on the outskirts of town. She was shot multiple times. According to some local media reports, Garcia was also tortured.
In the second attack, a large group of cartel gunmen stormed the municipality of Gómez Farías and also burned homes, vehicles, and businesses while firing numerous rounds. Upon the arrival of responding security elements, the gunmen were already gone. Investigators located another four murder victims to include a female.
The two attacks later resulted in a large deployment of federal police and Mexican Army elements to the area for search and security contingencies, according to Proceso.
A spokesperson for the Partido de la Revolución Democrática or PRD Party confirmed on Twitter the death of candidate Liliana García and also acknowledged that the homes and businesses of two other party members were targeted but occupants escaped without physical injury.
In a separate incident, the leader and founder of the Partido Encuentro Social (PES), Eduardo Aragón Caraveo, was found Sunday inside the trunk of a car on a road that leads to Ciudad Aldama. Aragón Caraveo was reported missing on May 4 and apparently died of gunshot wounds.
Breitbart Texas previously reported on the hostilities between the Juarez and Sinaloa Cartels and aligned criminal groups. Both are engaged in a struggle for valuable smuggling routes and lucrative street-level narcotics markets.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment out of the U.S. consulate general in Monterrey, Mexico, working for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com
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