Mexican military forces killed ten Gulf Cartel gunmen in one hour during two fierce clashes just south of the Texas border. The fighting comes while the Gulf Cartel has been responsible for numerous shootouts along several border cities as the criminal organization wages an internal turf war.
The shootout occurred late last week in a rural area between San Fernando, Matamoros, and Reynosa. The triangle region between those three cities, including Valle Hermoso, has become a war zone as rival factions of the Gulf Cartel have been fighting there for months. Those confrontations involve convoys of armored vehicles full of gunmen carrying high-powered weapons and explosives.
Marines and Mexico’s Navy patrolled the region and encountered a group of three gunmen riding in an SUV Sierra. The military forces tried to stop them, but the gunmen began shooting. The Mexican Marines fought off the attack, killing the three gunmen.
Soon after, authorities had a second clash where the Mexican Marines killed seven gunmen. Among the dead gunmen, authorities reported the death of a woman who is believed to be the cell’s leader. No arrests were reported during the shootout.
Despite efforts by the Tamaulipas government to downplay the raging violence, the state continues to experience a dramatic rise in violence with minimal interference from police forces. Mexico’s National Guard has also been absent from confrontations with cartel gunmen.
As Breitbart Texas has reported, the fighting is the result of a turf war between the Matamoros faction of the Gulf Cartel, which goes by the name Escorpiones, and the Reynosa faction of the Gulf Cartel which is known as the Metros. The two factions have been fighting over control of lucrative drug and human smuggling routes into Texas and the Metros joining forces with Cartel Jalisco New Generation.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” and “J.C. Sanchez” from Tamaulipas.
