MEXICAN DRUG WARS KILL 40 MORE

Fighting among the Zetas gang and other vicious drug cartels led to
the deaths of more than 40 people whose bodies were found in three
Mexican cities over a 24-hour span, a government official said.

At least 20 people were killed and five injured when gunmen opened
fire in a bar late Friday in the northern city of Monterrey, where the
gang is fighting its former ally, the Gulf Cartel, said federal
security spokesman Alejandro Poire.

Eleven bodies shot with high-powered rifles were found earlier on
Friday, piled near a water well on the outskirts of Mexico City, where
the gang is fighting the Knights Templar, Poire said.

That is an offshoot of the La Familia gang that has terrorised its
home state of Michoacan.

Poire said an additional 10 people were found dead early Saturday in
various parts of the northern city of Torreon, where the Zetas are
fighting the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman.

"The violence is a product of this criminal rivalry ... surrounding
the intent to control illegal activities in a community, and not the
only the earnings that come with it, but also with transporting drugs
to the United States," Poire said in a news conference.

Poire provided no more details on the killings in Torreon in the
border state of Coahuila.Coahuila state officials said the 10 bodies
in Torreon had been mutilated and left in a sports utility vehicle.

Seven of the victims were men and three were women, and all had been
killed several days earlier, said Fernando Olivas, a state
prosecutor's representative in Torreon.

In Monterrey, 16 people died at the Sabino Gordo bar in the worst mass
killing in memory in the northern industrial city, where violence has
spiked since the Gulf and Zetas broke their alliance early last year.

Four others died later at the hospital and five were injured, said
Jorge Domene, security spokesman for the state of Nuevo Leon, where
Monterrey is located.

Other downtown businesses closed earlier than usual after news of the
massacre broke.

In Valle de Chalco, a working class suburb southeast of Mexico City, a
man was found alive among the dumped bodies and was taken to a
hospital, said Antonio Ortega, a spokesman for the Mexico State
police.

He said some of the bodies were blindfolded and had their hands tied.
Poire said one woman was found seriously injured.

State officials said police found another body nearby a few hours
later but could not confirm it was related to the mass attack.

The capital region has been largely spared the widespread drug
violence that grips parts of Mexico.

But some poorer areas of the sprawling metropolis of 20 million people
have begun to see killings and decapitations committed by street gangs
that are remnants of splintered drug cartels.

In another incident allegedly involving Zetas, the Mexican Navy said
it rescued a former mayor of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, who
had been kidnapped along with his son.

Four alleged Zeta members were arrested at the scene after an
anonymous tip informed the navy of former Mayor Humberto Valdez's
abduction on Thursday, according to a Navy statement.

Poire repeated the government insistence that criminals, not the
government's crackdown on organised crime, are causing the violence.

More than 35,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon
stepped up the attack on organised crime in 2006, according to
official figures. Some groups put the number at more than 40,000.