BORDER DRUG WAR: JUAREZ HITS 1,000 HOMICIDES FOR YEAR; 16 SLAIN SATURDAY

Mexican federal police were attacked in a drive-by shooting during the
weekend as Juarez surpassed 1,000 homicides for the year.

Three or four officers were wounded by gunmen who shot a patrol truck
Sunday morning outside a medical clinic on Avenida Lopez Mateos, the
Norte newspaper reported on its website. No official information had
been released.

The homicide toll jumped on Saturday with 16 deaths, including one
during a confrontation in which federal police reportedly used an
armored vehicle to ram down the walls of a house in the village of
Guadalupe in the Valley of Juarez.

Federal police had not released details about Saturday's incident,
described by Mexican news media as a shootout lasting more than an
hour during the rescue of a kidnapping victim. An armored police
vehicle was used to ram the walls of a house where the alleged
kidnappers were bunkered.

Chihuahua state police confirmed that an unidentified man was killed
when he was shot multiple times in Guadalupe and that there were about
500 rounds fired.

There was other violence Saturday morning in the farming communities
of the Valley of Juarez, located across the border from the San
Elizario-Fort Hancock area.

State police reported an unidentified man in a Chevrolet Suburban was
fatally shot late Saturday morning by gunmen with AK-47s in the
community of Barreal. And, two unidentified men were also found shot
to death in the back seat of a car in the village of San Isidro.

There were also killings Advertisement throughout Juarez, including a
quadruple murder.

Four men in a red Chevrolet Trail Blazer were shot and killed on
Saturday afternoon in colonia Torreon in west Juarez. Police
identified the victims as Gabriel Calderon Olvera, 30, Andres Molina
Santos, 27, Osvaldo Zubia Calderon, 17, and an unidentified man about
25 years old.

More than 5,260 people have been killed in the Juarez area since a
drug cartel war began in 2008.