13 Dead in Shootout and Car Chase As Drug War Erupts in Tijuana

At least 13 people were killed and five others injured over the weekend in gun battles and car chases between drug gangs in Tijuana, one of the most violent flare-ups in the country's increasingly bloody drug war and despite a major government crackdown.

Saturday's pre-dawn battles left a trail of dead strewn along the streets of the Californian border city, some with their weapons still clasped in their hands. Others died slumped inside brand new cars left riddled with bullets.

The Baja California state attorney general, Rommel Moreno, said 54 guns, 21 vehicles, and more than 1,500 cartridges were recovered at five different locations in Tijuana.

Initial reports suggested that the gun battles involved feuding factions of the once-powerful Arrellano Felix cartel.

The family-run cartel - once one of Mexico's foremost cocaine- and marijuana-trafficking groups - descended into disarray following the arrest of many of the group's main leaders five years ago.

Reports later claimed the shootout involved the rival Sinaloa cartel, which was trying to muscle in on Arrellano Felix territory. Sinaloa is headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, currently Mexico's most infamous trafficker, a man who rose to fame after escaping from jail in a laundry van in 2001.

However, there was also suggestions that the gun battle could be part of the fallout from corruption allegations made last week by a Mexican general, Sergio Aponte, who accused several dozen top law enforcement officers in Tijuana of working for the crime bosses.

Some of the cars recovered from the scene contained police uniforms and bullet-proof jackets.

The attorney general said he was investigating if any of the dead or injured were also police officers.

Most Mexican papers reported that the leader of one of the main Arrellano Felix factions, known by the nickname El Muletas, or Crutches, was among the dead.

The battle apparently began when El Muletas and his convoy of 10 vehicles was ambushed as it sat off a main road in eastern Tijuana. Seven people died at the scene. The shootout then turned into a chase, which at one point involved a gun battle with the state police.

Although Saturday's violence was particularly bloody, Tijuana is well-established as being one of the main battlegrounds in the drug war. In January, eight people died when gunmen holed up in a heavily fortified suburban house fought off hundreds of police and soldiers for more than three hours. The shootout left local residents cowering behind their furniture and prompted the evacuation of a school.

The national newspaper El Universal claims Tijuana accounts for a fifth of the body count in Mexico's drug war, a figure made up mostly of single anonymous victims whose corpses regularly turn up in ditches, often with signs of having been tortured.

While the newspaper's figures are unofficial, the authorities rarely contest them. According to the body counts, the number of execution-style murders rose from 2,000 in 2006 to more than 2,500 last year. More than 1,000 people have been killed so far this year.

The figures represent a disappointment for President Felipe Calderón who ordered 25,000 soldiers and paramilitary police to rein in the violence when he assumed office in December 2006. However, the government claims the increasingly bloody drug wars are a positive sign because the traffickers - weakened by arrests and record-breaking seizures of drugs - are growing more desperate.

The weekend battle in Tijuana means more heavily armed police and troops patrolling the border city. Soldiers and police have been posted at the city's main hospital to guard the wounded from either revenge attacks or rescue attempts.

The authorities said reinforcements would be brought in from the capital.