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A total of 19 unidentified individuals were found shot to death and buried in a mass grave in the Mexican state of Jalisco Thursday, according to Mexican news accounts.
A news report which appeared in the online edition of Vanguardia news daily said that all but two of the bodies were identified as males. All were bound by their hands and shot to death. A number of the dead had been tortured.
The news account said that some of the victims sported tattoos which is a sign that the victims were members of a cartel or a local drug or criminal gang.
The find was made near La Barca municipality near the state border with Michoacan.
Last Saturday, 25 unidentified suspects were detained by police in Villa Hermosa municipality at a warehouse used as a safehouse, presumably for kidnapping operations. Among the detainees were two municipal police agents. Interrogations revealed the location of the mass grave, the work on which was completed Friday afternoon.
The Mexican federal government has been searching for two Procuraduria General de la Republica (PGR) agents, who went missing November 3rd. The arrests last Saturday were part of that search operation.
Currently Michocan, on Mexico's west coast, rivals Tamaulipas as one of Mexico's most violent. Since last year a number of indigenous communities have formed self defense groups, permitted under Mexican law, to enforce laws their own communities. The rise of those groups, called autodefensas, have threatened Caballero Templarios and Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartels dominance in the state, so much so that violence has escalated.
In fact, the violence has been so bad, the Mexican federal government has taken over the port city of Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan.
Caballeros Templarios comprises remnants of La Familia, which was destroyed by concerted Mexican federal government action in early 2011. Their chief rival in the region, Los Zetas, appear not to be much of a factor in regional violence since the cartel was for all intents and purposes beheaded two years ago.
Mexican law permits indigenous communities to form their own police forces outside the normal top-down system imposed by Mexico's strong central government. Those groups are permitted to carry, and to use, weapons usually only permitted to security forces including Mexico's military.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com