Mexico Crime: 11 Headless Corpses Found in Field

Eleven headless bodies have been found in a field near the southern city of Merida, shattering the relatively safe reputation of the Yucatan peninsula, an area popular with tourists.

A 12th body was found about 50 miles away. Police said the heads had not been found.

The grisly discovery on Thursday bears the hallmarks of the country's brutal drug war. For the last four years rival cartels have been fighting each other for control of trafficking routes, local production and growing domestic markets. Since December 2006, they have also been fighting a massive military-led offensive launched by President Felipe Calderón.

More than 2,300 people have been killed so far this year, already more than those murdered in the whole of 2007 which was also a record year for such killings. Beheadings have been a regular feature of the conflict since five severed heads were rolled on to the floor of a nightclub in the central Mexican city of Uruapan in 2006.

This week's macabre discovery by two teenagers is the worst case so far. Police told reporters that most of the still unidentified victims were naked with their hands and feet tied, and that all displayed obvious signs of torture.

Reuters reported the corpses were marked with the letter Z, suggesting a link to the infamous Zeta hit squad.

Formed from military deserters in the 1990s, the Zetas are now one of Mexico's most powerful trafficking gangs, and the highest-profile rivals to Joaquín "el Chapo" Guzmán, a powerful drug lord who escaped from a high-security jail in a laundry van in 2001.

The two cartels are said to be fighting for control of the peninsula.