Police in Mexico's resort city of Acapulco found five decomposing human heads left in a sack outside a primary school in the Garita neighborhood on Sept. 26. Handwritten messages were also found, apparently threatening the state governor as well as local drug lords. Five decapitated bodies were earlier found elsewhere in the city. Some 100 schools in Acapulco have been closed since last month with teachers on strike in response to extortion threats from criminal gangs who demanded they hand over half their salaries from Oct. 1. Guerrero state Gov. Angel Aguirre has promised increased police patrols and the installation of security cameras and panic buttons at schools.

Violence also continues in northern Tamaulipas with street shoot-outs between military troops and cartel gunmen reported this week form the cities of Altamira, Matamoros, Reynosa and Río Bravo, leaving at least four dead. Street battles in Matamoros raged for hours Sept. 28, causing mass panic. (BBC News, El Universal, Sept. 28)

See our last posts on Mexico's narco wars.

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