5 gunmen killed in shootout with soldiers in latest of series of clashes in northeast Mexico

5 gunmen killed in shootout with Mexican soldiers

MEXICO CITY — Five gunmen died in a shootout with soldiers in the border city of Reynosa early Friday, the latest of a series of clashes between troops and alleged drug traffickers in northeastern Mexico, authorities said.

The confrontation took place in a residential area of Reynosa, Tamaulipas state authorities said in a statement. The city is across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Assailants on Tuesday set up roadblocks near army garrisons and opened fire on checkpoints in several cities of the northeastern states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, setting off shootouts that killed 18 attackers and wounded one soldier.

The attacks are occurring as the Gulf cartel and the Zetas, the cartel’s former hit men, fight over control of northeastern Mexico. Experts say drug lords are trying to get military patrols out of the way of their bloody battle.

Elsewhere in Mexico, at least 12 people were killed in drug-related violence Thursday and Friday.

In the border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego, California, police on Friday found the bodies of three men who had been shot to death in a residential area, state prosecutors said in a statement.

Also Friday, authorities in Nogales, across the border from the Arizona town of the same name, said they were investigating the death of a man who had been shot in the head and his body later burned up inside a car.

Farther south, police in Morelia, capital of the western state of Michoacan, found the mutilated bodies of two men who had been shot to death. A “Z” was carved on their bodies, an apparent reference to the Zetas, prosecutors said.

The Zetas, based in the border state of Tamaulipas, across from Texas, have been involved in bloody confrontations with the Michoacan-based La Familia drug cartel.

Drug-related violence in Mexico has claimed more than 18,000 lives since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon first launched a nationwide crackdown on drug traffickers, beginning with Michoacan, his home state.