6 People Dead in Mexico Clashes
KABUL: (Middle East Press) Clashes between police and armed men have claimed the lives of six people in a city in Mexico’s northeastern state of Tamaulipas, Press TV reported.
Authorities said the fighting erupted after four carloads of armed men attacked Tamaulipas State and federal police in Matamoros on Saturday. Five assailants as well as a police officer were killed in the clashes.
The Tamaulipas state government said in a statement that four of the gunmen were killed inside a car, which struck a restaurant’s metal gate.
The fifth armed man was gunned down in a car chase while other assailants managed to escape the scene.
A police officer was injured and later died in a hospital in the violence-plagued Mexican city, which borders the city of Brownsville in the southern US state of Texas.
Last month, Mexican soldiers killed six gunmen who opened fire on army troops in Vanguardia, a farming community in Matamoros.
A soldier enters a bullet-riddled home covered by the initials of the Gulf and Zetas drug cartels in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas State, Mexico. (© AP)
The clashes come as the Gulf and Zetas drug cartels have been fighting for control of Tamaulipas and smuggling routes into the US over the past years.
The Tamaulipas state government has stepped up security in Tamaulipas since May last year to stop a wave of drug-related violence in the region.
