49 headless bodies found

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ

Associated Press

CADEREYTA, Mexico — Authorities struggled Monday to identify 49 bodies without heads, hands or feet to gain clues into the latest in a series of massacres from an escalating war between Mexico’s two dominant drug cartels, with increasing evidence that innocents are being pulled into the bloodbath along with gang rivals.

More than 24 hours after the gruesome discovery, officials had yet to identify any of the mutilated corpses found near the northern industrial city of Monterrey. None of the bodies examined so far showed signs of gunshots, Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene told Milenio television.

Though it was unclear who the victims were, it was the fourth massacre in a month. Mexico’s interior secretary, Alejandro Poire, said Monday that all those incidents resulted from the fight between the Zetas gang and the Sinaloa Cartel, which have emerged in the last year as the two main forces in Mexican drug-trafficking and other organized crime.

Some victims in earlier body dumps have turned out to be bakers, brick layers, even students — anyone who could be snatched off the streets in mass killings that one captured gang member said were designed to “cause terror.”

Poire would not respond directly when asked by The Associated Press if innocents have increasingly become targets.

“We don’t have proper identification of the dead,” he said. “We have to leave that to the investigation.”

“We have to look deeper … to know the motives or who could have been the victims of violence,” Poire added.

The 43 men and six women found Sunday were dumped at the entrance to the town of San Juan in the municipality of Cadereyta about 105 miles southwest of McAllen, Texas.