Narco Blog: 13 Bodies Found Near Mexican Port City

Soldiers found 13 bodies inside a vehicle on a highway near Tampico, a port city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, state prosecutors said.

Army troops received a tip while on patrol that a 3.5-ton truck with tags from neighboring Veracruz state had been abandoned on the highway, the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office said.

The vehicle was found Sunday on the El Moralillo-Tampico highway, the AG’s office said.

“A pair of banners alluding to gang rivalries” were found with the bodies, the AG’s office said.

Officials from Tamaulipas and Veracruz are working on a joint investigation with the federal Attorney General’s Office, state prosecutors said.

Autopsies will be performed and information cross-checked with the federal government’s database in an effort to identify the victims, the Tamaulipas AG’s office said.

Eleven civilians and five suspected criminals died during an attack on three buses last Thursday in Veracruz.

Gunmen attacked the buses during the early morning hours on the Tempoal-Panuco highway near the Tamaulipas border.

The gunmen were later killed in a shootout with army troops.

The army is carrying out “Operation Northeast” in Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila and San Luis Potosi states in an effort to weaken the drug cartels that operate in the region.

The Gulf drug cartel has been waging a war in northeastern Mexico against Los Zetas, a band of army special forces deserters turned hired guns and drug traffickers.

After several years as the armed wing of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories.

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