Thirteen men were found Dec. 4 shot to death in northern Mexico's Sinaloa state. The bodies—lined up, face down, their hands bound, and mostly with execution-style coup de grace shots to the head—were discovered by local police some 600 meters from Highway 15 between the town of Coyotitlan and the coastal resort Mazatlán, in the pueblo of San Miguel, San Ignacio municipality. Some 80 spent shells were found nearby—and an abandoned truck with license plates indicating "Federal Public Service." The victims were all between 25 and 30, and all had military-type haircuts. Police say they have identified the men; they are from Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, and were transfered to Sinaloa in the truck.

Also that day, the chauffeur of the president of the Sinaloa Ranchers Union was among five killed around Sinaloa's port city of Culiacán. Several deaths were also reported in Chihuahua state to the north, where the Sinaloa Cartel is thought to be battling the local Juárez Cartel. In Chihuahua City, five men were chased down in a pickup truck by three vehicles full of gunmen who sprayed them with bullets. Also in Chihuahua's capital, a police investigator was ambushed and shot more than 60 times in his patrol car. Six more were killed in Ciudad Juárez. A total of 30 were killed in presumed narco wars around Mexico that day. The number of narco-killings in Mexico this year has surpassed 5,000, according to a toll kept by El Universal newspaper. (La Jornada, AP, AFP, Dec. 4)

See our last post on Mexico's narco wars.

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