SIX BODIES FOUND SO FAR AT BORDER RANCH

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - Mexican and U.S. officials dug up the remains
of four bodies at a border ranch Wednesday, bringing to six the number
found in a painstaking search for suspected victims of a brutal drug gang.

The remains, along with clothing, belts and shoes, were found buried behind
a barn at the Rancho la Campana, 10 miles south-west of Ciudad Juarez and
across the border from El Paso, Texas. Authorities say more than 100 bodies
may be buried in graves in the area.

"The remains have been located in a very specific area. The bodies have
been found very close together, one atop another," said Jose Larrieta
Carrasco, head of the organized crime unit for Mexico's attorney general's
office.

FBI forensic experts, working with Mexican soldiers and ski-masked police,
searched four desert ranches near the border, concentrating on two near
Ciudad Juarez, the home base for the Juarez drug cartel, Mexico's largest
and most violent drug-smuggling outfit in 1990s.

At Rancho la Campana, investigators in surgical masks and gloves spent the
morning sifting through sand and gravel using screens and wheelbarrows.
Hours later, Mexican soldiers carried out several white plastic bags large
enough to hold bodies and placed them in a refrigerated truck with U.S.
license plates.

Attorney General Jorge Madrazo said the remains would undergo DNA and other
analyses by FBI and Mexican experts while investigators continue searching
for more bodies.

"At this moment, nobody in the world could tell you who they belong to," he
said.

The searchers are using techniques ranging from ground-piercing radar and
DNA analysis to old-fashioned shovels and sieves to hunt for and identify
the dead.

U.S. officials say an informant told them as many as 100 bodies might be
buried at the ranches. Mexican officials have said they don't know how many
are there, but that more than 100 people disappeared around Ciudad Juarez
in the mid-1990s - including 22 Americans.