At least 30 people have been killed in the past two weeks in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa as two factions of the powerful Sinaloa cartel continue to clash, authorities said on Tuesday, September 17.
(AP) On Wednesday, September 18th, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said that two military personnel were among those killed in the fighting that started Sept. 9, despite the presence of more than 2,000 security personnel.
The surge in violence had been expected after Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, landed near El Paso, Texas on July 25 in a small plane with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
Zambada was the cartel’s elder figure and reclusive leader. After his arrest, he said in a letter circulated by his lawyer that he had been abducted by the younger Guzmán and taken to the U.S. against his will.
On Friday, September 13th, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador literally asked the warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel to act “responsibly” so no one else gets killed, after a week of escalating violence nearly paralyzed the Sinaloa state capital, Culiacan.
Asked by a journalist if he trusted that the cartels would heed his call, López Obrador answered bluntly: “The president of Mexico is always listened to.”
“Even by criminals?” pressed the journalist.
“By everyone, more so if one has moral authority,” responded the president.
The clashes in the state’s capital Culiacan are the latest example of the violence that continues to plague Mexico, where cartels employ increasingly sophisticated forms of warfare, including roadside bombs or IEDs, trenches, home-made armored vehicles, and bomb-dropping drones.
With information from AP
San Miguel Times
Newsroom
