MEXICAN STATE REPORTS ARMY CLASH WITH DRUG TRAFFICKERS

MEXICO CITY - Troops clashed with men armed with automatic weapons in a
rural part of southern Mexico, killing one person and injuring another, the
Guerrero state government said Saturday.

The state news release, reported by the federal government's Notimex news
agency, said that the clash occurred Friday in the village of Palanca del
Rio near the town of Coyuca de Catalan in mountainous territory about 120
miles southwest of Mexico City.

The government attributed the clash to drug traffickers and said a
suspected trafficker named Salvador Cortes Gonzalez died and a woman named
Elba Garcia Lopez was injured.

Five men were arrested and the government said troops confiscated five
automatic rifles, four shotguns, four other rifles and four pistols, as
well as several pounds of poppy and marijuana seed.

The Mexico City newspaper Reforma quoted state officials it did not name as
saying leftist guerrillas may have been involved in the clash because
troops found propaganda for the Popular Liberation Army at the scene.

But the state news release later Saturday said the presence of guerrillas
had been disproved. It said local residents claimed the group involved in
the clash had killed seven federal policemen last March in the same area.