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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of nine armed suspects were killed by Mexican security forces in two separate shootouts in the border city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, according to Mexican news accounts.
According to a news story posted on the website of the Mexican leftist news daily La Jornada, four armed suspects were killed by a Grupo Armas y Tacticos Especiales (GATE) squad at around 1310 hrs Tuesday afternoon.
The suspects were encountered near the intersection of Libramiento Pérez Treviño and Calle Francisco Marquez in Guilléen colony travelling aboard a Pontiac sedan.
The report said that presumably a different group was spotted travelling aboard a Dodge Ram pickup truck at around 1200 hrs in San Joaquin colony southwest of the city. After shots were exchanged with police, the suspects abandoned their vehicle and began to move by foot.
In the aftermath of the shootout, GATE agents seized one shotgun, one Uzi brand submachine gun and more than 800 packages of marijuana and crack cocaine.
According to a news report posted on the website of El Diario de Coahuila news daily, another shootout took place in Piedras Negras Wednesday afternoon, as an armed group travelling aboard a Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV was intercepted by a squad of GATE agents near the intersection of Libramiento Perez Treviño and Avenida Martinez.
Four armed suspects were killed, with a fifth suspect managing to escape. He was later found and shot to death by police as he tried to make his escape.
Following the shootout, police seized three AK-47 assault rifles and a bag of marijuana.
Piedras Negras has been the focus of an apparently intensified Mexican federal and state security effort since a large number of shootouts and gang activities has spiked in the area in the wake of a prison break that released more than 100 inmates, many of them reportedly affiliated with Los Zetas.
That prison break took place two weeks ago.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com