Fourteen Dismembered Bodies Found in Truck in Northern Mexico

Fourteen dismembered bodies were found in a truck in the center of a town in northern Mexico on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest atrocity committed by rival gangs battling over drug-smuggling routes, local media said.

The bodies of 11 men and three women were discovered in the sugar-cane farming town of Ciudad Mante in the south of Tamaulipas state, which borders on Texas, daily Milenio reported on its website.

{snip}

More than 55,000 people have been killed in the conflict since President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to fight drug gangs shortly after he took office in December 2006.

{snip}

Suspected drug cartel killers dumped 49 decapitated and dismembered bodies on a highway near the affluent northern city of Monterrey in May. Days before, 18 mutilated bodies were found near Mexico’s second-largest city, Guadalajara.

At the beginning of May, the bodies of nine people were hung from a bridge and 14 other dismembered victims were found in the city of Nuevo Laredo, also in Tamaulipas state and just across the border from Laredo, Texas.

{snip}