DRUG WAR CARNAGE CLAIMS MORE LIVES

Thirty people have been killed or found dead in Mexico, including 13
tied-up bodies discovered inside a bus in Sinaloa, in the latest
carnage linked to drug wars in the country, officials say.

The 13 had their hands tied behind their backs and were face down in a
neat row, inside a bus in San Ignacio village, in northwestern Sinaloa
state - home to Mexico's largest drug cartel, local officials said on
Thursday.

"We have unfortunately found 13 bodies... most of them youth," Jose
Jiovan Rosas Corrales, a local official, said.

The unidentified victims were found with numerous bullet wounds,
including from gangland-style gunshots to the head, local media reported.

In northern Chihuahua state, home to billion-dollar drug-smuggling
corridors straddling the border with the United States, 17 people were
killed Thursday, including nine in Chihuahua capital, six in Ciudad
Juarez and two others elsewhere in the state.

Most gruesome was the execution-style killing in Chihuahua of five
suspected drug gang members who were chased down in a pickup truck by
three vehicles full of gunmen who sprayed them with bullets, the local
attorney general's office said.

Also in Chihuahua, a police investigator was ambushed and shot more
than 60 times inside his patrol car.

More than 4500 people have been killed this year in drug-related
crime, particularly prevalent in northern Mexico, the source of most
illegal drug shipments to the United States.

In Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, more than 1900 people
have been killed since the start of the year, making it Mexico's
murder capital.