AMERICAS

40 Are Killed in Gun Battle in Mexico

By 
MEXICO CITY — More than 40 people were killed Friday in a confrontation with members of the federal police, who have sought to tamp down an increase in crime in southwest Mexico marked by an accelerating series of violent challenges to authority.
The authorities were still sorting out the details, but the toll was among the highest in several years in an attack involving the police or the military. Monte Alejandro Rubido, the national security commissioner, said that 42 attackers had been killed and that three had been detained. One federal police officer died.
Pictures posted on social media from the area showed numerous vehicles and some buildings engulfed in flames.
Officials said a federal police convoy was ambushed in a rural area bordering Michoacán and Jalisco, two of Mexico’s most violent states and a region where a powerful new drug gang, the Jalisco New Generation, has been trying to gain control.
It was unclear if members of this gang participated in the attack on Friday, but they are believed to be responsible for a recent wave of mayhem in the area, including the shooting down of a military helicopter this month that left eight soldiers and a police officer dead.
Salvador Jara Guerrero, the governor of Michoacán, said in an interview with the Milenio television station that “it was probable” that the gang was involved. He said the armed group carried high-powered guns and grenade launchers.
The convoy was responding to a tip about an armed group and took fire from the assailants for nearly an hour at the scene.
José Ignacio Cuevas, the mayor of Tanhuato, Michoacán, near Tinaja de Vargas, where the attack occurred, said federal forces had stepped up patrols in recent days after the killing of a mayoral candidate in a nearby town.
Several rural political candidates, primarily in southwest Mexico, have been killed in recent months ahead of state and local elections on June 7.
Regardless of the culprits, the violence demonstrated the difficulties facing the authorities as they seek to control lawless corners of the country.
A version of this article appears in print on May 23, 2015, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Gun Battle In Mexico Kills Dozens. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe