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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of 16 unidentified individuals have died in ongoing drug and gang related violence in Tamaulipas state, according to Mexican news accounts.
In a post on the website of El Sol de Mexico news daily, nine unidentified individuals were found hanging from the Colosio Bridge in the border city of Nuevo Laredo Friday. Security forces were alerted to the presence of the dead through social media, such as Twitter.
Mexican news reports say the dead were taken from a bar and from two homes in the city. Official sources have not reported how the victims died, or their identities.
Last May, nine dead bodies were left hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo only hours after 14 other victims were found mutilated. It later transpired that many of those dead were innocents caught up in a gruesome struggle between the Los Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.
Nuevo Laredo is the only border/river crossing held by Los Zetas, and has come under an intense struggle as Sinaloa aligned Gulf Cartel has attempted to eject Los Zetas from their home turf.
Meanwhile in San Fernando municipality, seven unidentified men were found executed Friday morning by a Mexican Army unit operating in the area, according to a news item posted on Animal Politico website.
The army unit had been conducting a raid at around 0850 hrs at a location on Kilometer 18 of the San Fernando to La Carbonera road when soldiers found the victims. The dead were in their 50s and 60s, and had been bound, then shot to death using rifles.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com