Three state police officers and four drug cartel suspects were slain in a series of shootouts in Tamaulipas, a state in northern Mexico that borders Texas, officials said Wednesday.
Another five police officers were injured in a series of clashes on roadways near San Fernando, Tamaulipas.
On Tuesday, drug cartel gunmen set up roadblocks and attacked police patrols in the region, and later that day, they ambushed a funeral convoy of cars carrying the body of one of the victims from the initial incident.
The office of the state security spokesman confirmed the deaths on Wednesday, but there was no immediate word on the condition of the injured officers.
San Fernando is located almost midway between the state capital, Ciudad Victoria, and the border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa.
Between 2010 and 2011, San Fernando witnessed some of the most brutal violence in Mexico’s drug war. During those years, drug cartel gunmen massacred 72 migrants, many of whom were from Central America, and killed around 122 bus passengers. Those victims were taken from passing buses and made to battle each other to the death with sledgehammers.
Tamaulipas has long been ruled by the Gulf organization and the former Zetas organization, now known as the Cartel del Noreste.
On Wednesday, cartel suspects in another border state, Sonora, killed a detective and injured two others in an attack that included ramming a police van.
The altercation took place early Wednesday on a route leading to the border hamlet of Sasabe, west of Nogales, Arizona. A Mexican marine was also hurt during the incident. All of the injured were listed in stable condition.
Authorities were pursuing an SUV driving with its lights turned off on a rural road when the suspects hit the detectives’ patrol vehicles and then a Mexican marine unit before opening fire. Marines and detectives exchanged gunfire, killing three suspects.
The area is a hotspot for smuggling people and drugs.
