The suspected intellectual author of the arson attack that killed 52 people at the Casino Royale in the northern Mexican industrial city of Monterrey on Aug. 25, 2011, died in a shootout with army troops, the Defense Secretariat said.

Francisco Medina Mejia, a leader of the Los Zetas drug cartel, died Wednesday in a gunfight with soldiers on the Nuevo Laredo-Piedras Negras highway, which links Tamaulipas and Coahuila states.