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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
As many as 40 armed suspects attacked the facade of the police station and city hall in San Cristobal de la Barranca municipality in extreme northern Jalisco state Sunday morning, according to Mexican news reports.
A report on the website of El Sol de Zacatecas news daily said that the suspects arrived aboard ten pickup trucks at about 0600 hrs, dismounted and then proceeded to fire on the police station. The firing last five minutes.
The suspects then left on board their vehicles in the direction of the nearby village of La Lobera. The attack left no one hurt. About 500 spent shell casing from AR-15 and AK-47 rifles were found at the scene.
San Cristobal de la Barranca is on the mountain highway Mexico Federal Highway 23 which connects Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state in the south with Teul de Gonzalez Ortega in Zacatecas state in the north.
The area since at least 2011 has been a scene of an intense and deadly competition between Los Zetas on one side and La Valencia Drug Cartel and Carteles Unidos, both of which are aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel.
That competition has led to large scale armed encounters between the groups, the bloodiest of which was an unconfirmed gunfight in San Cristobal de la Barranca municipality, which led to as many as 20 dead a year ago.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
© Copyright 2012 by Chris Covert
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