11 Murdered in northern Mexico

Mexico City, Agency
Eleven people were slain in separate incidents in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, authorities said Friday. The bodies were found in the towns of Jimenez and San Fernando, a spokesperson for the Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office said.

Five of the dead were discovered in Jimenez, 97 kilometers (60 miles) from Ciudad Victoria, the state capital. Three of them were inside a vehicle parked at a gas station, while the other two bodies were dumped about 200 meters (yards) away.

The six fatalities in San Fernando - the scene in August of a massacre of 72 undocumented migrants trying to reach the United States - included municipal public works director Marco Samuel Herrera Rangel, the AG's office said.

Separately, Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez Flores acknowledged Friday that governments in some of the state's municipalities have been overwhelmed amid a fierce turf war between the Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels.

Maintaining that state and local police lack the firepower to contend with the heavily armed cartels, he called for a greater presence of federal police and troops in towns along Tamaulipas' border with Texas, including Guerrero, Ciudad Mier, Miguel Aleman, Camargo and Diaz Ordaz.

"For several months we have experienced a very tense situation in the border region of the state, especially in the riparian region," the governor said, referring to areas on the banks of the Rio Grande.

Indeed, the government of Miguel Aleman said Thursday it is seeking help from communities on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border to support some 200 families who fled nearby towns to escape the escalating violence.

Miguel Aleman, a city of some 25,000 residents, is harboring around 400 residents of Ciudad Mier and Guerrero who abandoned their homes in response to threats from drug traffickers.

The shelter in Miguel Aleman is the first established anywhere in Mexico for civilians fleeing the drug-related violence that has claimed nearly 30,000 nationwide in the last four years, including 10,000 this year.