40 Are Killed in Gun Battle in Mexico
MEXICO CITY — More than 40 people were killed Friday in a confrontation with members of the federal police, who have sought to tamp down an increase in crime in southwest Mexico marked by an accelerating series of violent challenges to authority.
The authorities were still sorting out the details, but the toll was among the highest in several years in an attack involving the police or the military. Monte Alejandro Rubido, the national security commissioner, said that 42 attackers had been killed and that three had been detained. One federal police officer died.
Pictures posted on social media from the area showed numerous vehicles and some buildings engulfed in flames.
Officials said a federal police convoy was ambushed in a rural area bordering Michoacán and Jalisco, two of Mexico’s most violent states and a region where a powerful new drug gang, the Jalisco New Generation, has been trying to gain control.
It was unclear if members of this gang participated in the attack on Friday, but they are believed to be responsible for a recent wave of mayhem in the area, including the shooting down of a military helicopter this month that left eight soldiers and a police officer dead.
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