Raid to nab El Chapo's son fails

Violence fills city as Mexican security forces, cartel battle

Soldiers patrol Friday around Culiacan, Mexico, a day after a gunbattle between drug cartel members and security forces. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/1019gun/
Soldiers patrol Friday around Culiacan, Mexico, a day after a gunbattle between drug cartel members and security forces. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/1019gun/

CULIACAN, Mexico -- Mexican security forces aborted an attempt to capture a son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman after finding themselves outgunned in a ferocious shootout with cartel henchmen that left at least eight people dead and more than 20 wounded, authorities said Friday.

Thursday's gunbattle paralyzed the capital of Mexico's Sinaloa state, Culiacan, and left several streets littered with burning vehicles. Residents took cover indoors as automatic gunfire raged outside.

It was the third bloody and terrifying shootout in less than a week between security forces and cartel henchmen, raising questions about whether President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's policy of avoiding the use of force and focusing on social ills is working.

Lopez Obrador defended the decision to back down, saying his predecessors' strategy "turned this country into a cemetery, and we don't want that anymore."

But Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who has worked undercover in Mexico, called the violence "a massive black eye to the Mexican government" and a "sign that the cartels are more powerful" than it is.

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Several streets in Culiacan, a city of more than 800,000, remained blocked with torched cars Friday morning, schools were closed and some public offices asked their employees to stay home. Few buses were running.

Authorities said 35 troops arrived at a home Thursday afternoon to arrest Ovidio Guzman Lopez on a 2018 extradition request from the U.S. They entered the home, where Guzman and three others were inside.

However, heavily armed men surrounded the house while others unleashed mayhem elsewhere in the city, taking over toll booths and blocking major intersections.

Amid the chaos, inmates at a prison rioted, seized weapons from guards and fled. Fifty-six prisoners escaped, and 49 were still at large Friday, according to Sinaloa Public Security Secretary Cristobal Castaneda. Two guards who were taken captive were later freed.

Videos on social media showed a scene resembling a war zone, with gunmen, some in black ski masks, riding in the back of trucks and firing mounted machine guns as smoke rose above the cityscape. People ran for cover as gunfire rattled around them, and motorists drove frantically in reverse, trying to escape gunfire.

Five attackers, a member of the National Guard, a civilian and a prisoner died in the gun battles, Defense Secretary Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval said. He said seven members of the security forces were wounded and eight held captive before being released unharmed.

The government's security cabinet made the decision to withdraw the troops to avoid greater loss of life.

"The capture of one criminal cannot be worth more than the lives of people. They made the decision and I supported it," Lopez Obrador said. He added: "We do not want deaths. We do not want war."

Security cabinet officials said they were not informed about the operation beforehand. They said troops surrounded the house without a search warrant and came under fire before one could be delivered, at that point deciding to enter without the warrant. And they said the troops underestimated the cartel's response.

Sandoval said that if the security cabinet had known about the operation, it would have gone about it differently and deployed more troops and even sent air support.

"This group ... rushed things. It did not consider the consequences," he said.

It was not clear what happened to Guzman after the troops left. Federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo said he was never under formal detention. Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, a lawyer for the Guzman family, said he was told Ovidio is "alive and free."

The elder Guzman is serving a life sentence in the U.S. after being convicted last February of industrial-scale drug trafficking.

Ovidio is not one of the drug lord's best-known sons. Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and Jesus Alfredo Guzman are known as "Los Chapitos," or "the little Chapos," and are believed to be running their father's cartel together with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.

But Ovidio Guzman was indicted in 2018 in Washington, along with a fourth brother, on charges of trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Gunbattles between gangs and security forces are relatively common in Mexico, but this week has seen three notable and frightening clashes. On Monday, 13 police officers were killed in a cartel ambush in the state of Michoacan, and the following day soldiers killed 14 gunmen while losing one of their own in neighboring Guerrero state.

Vigil, the former DEA agent, worried that the retreat could lead to more bloodshed.

"This is going to set an example for the other groups," Vigil said. "It sends them the message that if they capture a member of the cartel, all they have to do is go in the city and intimidate the citizenry and security forces."

Information for this story was contributed by María Verza of the Associated Press.

A Section on 10/19/2019

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