Mexican drug cartel gunmen burn shops, cars to avenge arrests

Local authorities reported road blocks, burning vehicles, and shootouts between Mexican security forces and armed gangs.

Drug cartel gunmen have burned more than two dozen convenience stores and blocked roads with blazing vehicles in western Mexico in response to a military operation that was aimed at an apparent meeting of gang bosses, authorities said.

Images circulated on social media showed armed men commandeering cars and buses and setting them on fire late on Tuesday. Other images showed burned-out convenience stores from the violence that erupted in several municipalities in Guanajuato and Jalisco, two of Mexico’s most violent states, according to officials.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday that soldiers had confronted criminals, including “bosses”, at a “meeting of two gangs” in Jalisco state.

The president said there was a shoot-out, arrests and “this provoked protests of burned vehicles, not only in Jalisco, but also in Guanajuato”.

The US Consulate in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state, issued an advisory instructing employees “to follow the advice of local authorities and to shelter in place until further notice”.

“Local authorities and media are reporting multiple road blockades, burning vehicles, and shootouts between Mexican security forces and unspecified criminal elements in various parts of the Guadalajara metropolitan area,” the consulate said.

Agencies