Mexican troops take action after invasion leaves 22 dead

HERMOSILLO, Mexico -- Police chased the remnants of a criminal assault force through mountains near the Arizona border yesterday after kidnappings and gunbattles that left at least 22 people dead.

Federal police helicopters and ground forces searched the Sierra Madre for fleeing gunmen while state police moved in to replace terrified local officers who abandoned the town of Cananea, 20 miles south of the US border.

Officials said yesterday that Mexican army troops had joined the fight Wednesday after a powerful drug cartel sent the assailants into town.

Armed with assault rifles and riding in 10 to 15 vehicles, they pulled four lightly armed city police officers out of police cars and executed them in a roadside park.

The invasion of Cananea -- a town that helped spark the 1910 Mexican Revolution when US forces crossed the border to help put down a miners' strike -- showed the brashness and power of Mexico's ruthless organized crime gangs.

The first outside authorities to arrive in Cananea on Wednesday found an eerie no-man's land where local law enforcement had melted away.

"When the state police arrived, there was not a single municipal police officer," Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours said, noting he previously asked for a federal investigation of the Cananea police force, apparently to determine whether it was infiltrated by Mexico's Pacific Coast drug gangs.

"We had to take over the command. There wasn't anyone there. They had all left."

Five kidnapped city police were found dead and two residents were killed. State and federal police and soldiers rescued four civilians, including two children, as the battle broke out.

Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna blamed a turf battle between the Gulf and Pacific drug gangs.

"An armed command first abducted a police patrol, then went out on the streets of Cananea . . . abducting policemen," Garcia Luna told reporters.

"It is a group linked to the Gulf cartel, waging a turf battle with the Pacific people, for control of this territory."

He praised Sonora state officials for their "efficient" response.