DRUG TRAFFICKERS' FEUD IN MEXICO LEAVES FIVE DEAD

MEXICO CITY, March 12 (Reuters) - A gun fight between groups of drug
dealers in Mexico's Tamaulipas state, bordering the United States,
left five dead and three injured, a state official said on Tuesday.

The Tamaulipas state police department said the battle occurred after
an armed group entered a neighborhood in border city Nuevo Laredo on
Monday night, "only a few meters" from the frontier with the United
States.

"The gun fight was between members of gangs involved in the sale of
drugs," a police department official told Reuters.

"The confrontation was apparently the result of problems (between the
gangs)," said the official.

The killers, who escaped in two trucks and three cars, were armed
with AK-47 assault rifles commonly used in the Mexican drug trade.

Mexico is one of the world's main marijuana producers, and a major
conduit for the transport of South American cocaine to the United
States, the No. 1 international consumer of illicit drugs.

The Mexican government on Saturday captured Benjamin Arellano Felix,
a leader of a violent drug cartel located in the frontier city of
Tijuana, and one of the most-wanted suspects in the United states and
in Mexico. The so-called Tijuana cartel is accused of smuggling large
quantities of drugs to the United States.

The official said there was no information so far available linking
Monday's deadly gun battle with the Arellano Felix arrest.