Mexican soldiers killed 19 suspected cartel members and arrested a local cartel leader following a shootout on Monday in northwest Mexico, a region that has been shaken by an eruption of bloodshed between two rival factions of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel.
The arrest and the killings in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state, took place after soldiers repelled an attack by a group of more than 30 armed men, Mexico’s defense ministry said on Tuesday night. The suspected cartel operatives who were not killed managed to flee the scene, the defense ministry said, while the army suffered no casualties.
The killings reflect how the escalating violence in Sinaloa is quickly shaping into a test for Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office earlier this month vowing to continue the strategy of her predecessor in attempting to avoid armed confrontations with criminal groups in a bid to limit mass casualties.
But the death toll from Monday’s shootout could point to a pivot from the approach of the previous president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, security analysts said. The episode is one of the bloodiest of its kind since soldiers killed 22 a decade ago, in an incident in which the military was exposed for having executed people who had surrendered.
“We might be seeing a more heavy-handed approach,” said Falko Ernst, an independent security analyst based in Mexico City. While he cautioned that details of the shootout remain hazy, Mr. Ernst added that the episode on Monday could show that Mexico’s military is preparing to intervene more forcefully in cartel infighting to fend off a broader surge of violence around the country.
Ms. Sheinbaum’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Traditionally a center of cartel activity, Sinaloa state had been relatively calm in recent years until tensions flared in late July over the betrayal of a godfather of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, who was tricked by a son of his former ally and cartel co-founder, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo.
El Chapo’s son lured Mr. Zambada García onto a flight to the United States where he was handed over to U.S. federal agents outside El Paso, Texas, according to U.S. officials. A tense calm ensued after the unusual arrest, but then infighting ignited in early September, turning Culiacán, a city of about one million people, into a war zone.
Since then, more than 190 people have been killed, 224 have disappeared and about 200 families have been displaced, according to the State Council of Public Security, a nonprofit group in Sinaloa that tracks violent crime in the state.
After Monday’s shootout, the detained suspected cartel leader was identified as Edwin Antonio Rubio López, alias El Max, the head of a cell of the Sinaloa Cartel “who has been actively involved in the recent violence,” the ministry’s statement said.
Mr. Rubio López, 33, is part of the faction that used to be led by Mr. Zambada García, who made his first appearance in a U.S. court in Brooklyn last week. This faction has been engaged in fighting with a rival bloc known as the Chapitos, led by Mr. Guzmán Loera’s sons.
The federal government has sent about 3,300 soldiers and National Guard members to Sinaloa, most of whom patrol the streets of Culiacán, according to a Mexican military spokesman. The army also seized the weapons of Culiacán’s police force, casting attention on suspicions of collusion between local police officers and the Sinaloa Cartel.
Security analysts say the Sinaloa Cartel has long functioned as a kind of federation of family-based groups and other factions operating under the same banner. Over the last eight years, the Sinaloa Cartel has been “largely responsible” for the huge influx of fentanyl into the United States, according to the D.E.A.
According to a major hack targeting Mexico’s Defense Ministry a few years ago, Mr. Rubio López, the detained cartel suspect, helped coordinate the Sinaloa Cartel’s smuggling of synthetic drugs from border cities into the United States.
As the factions battle one another in Culiacán, the outbursts of violence in recent weeks have brought residents’ lives and the local economy to a standstill.
“Schools closed, some businesses closed, the city imposed a curfew. People are still very reluctant to go out at night,” said Iliana Padilla Reyes, a researcher who studies violence in Culiacán, her home city. “There is a lot of fear.”
Despite the deployment of the army, the shootings, disappearances and attacks have continued, including an armed assault in recent days on the offices of El Debate, a local newspaper that has reported on the rising violence in the state. No one was injured, but a newspaper delivery man was abducted.
“The presence of the military has not meant more calm and security for the people of Sinaloa,” Ms. Padilla Reyes said. “Just when it seems like violence is being contained, comes another violent Saturday.”
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