Explosion kills 2 Mexican soldiers in suspected booby trap by drug cartel after troops find dismembered bodies

A makeshift land mine apparently planted by a drug cartel killed two Mexican soldiers and injured five others, Mexico’s Defense Minister announced Tuesday. Officials said that before the explosion, soldiers found the dismembered bodies of three people.

General Ricardo Trivilla admitted that the army had already suffered six deaths due to such improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, between 2018 and 2024. But he did not specify whether these six were killed by bombs dropped by drones, or by bombs buried on the side of the road. Both have been used by gangs in Mexico.

Devices like the one that exploded Monday were “very rustic,” and officials have described them in the past as resembling buried pipe bombs, Trivella said. There was no immediate information available about the condition of the five wounded in the attack, including at least one officer.

Trivilla described the place where the two soldiers died on Monday in the western state of the country Michoacan He suggested it might have been some sort of grisly drug cartel trap.

Trivilla said the army sent a patrol to verify reports of a militant camp in a rural area. The armed forces discovered an area protected by barricades that looked like a camp, but when the soldiers approached in vehicles, they found the path blocked by trees, so they disembarked and had to approach on foot.

As they approached, they found three dismembered bodies near the camp, which appeared to be abandoned. But when they approached, a buried device exploded and wounded the soldiers.

Trivilla blamed the explosion on the United Cartels, an umbrella group that includes the local Viagra gang, which has been waging bloody battles against the Jalisco cartel in Michoacán for years.

In August, the Mexican army admitted that some of its soldiers had been killed Drones to drop bombs Run by drug gangs.

Previously, officials said that the army was facing a much larger number of roadside bombs than those dropped by drones.

the Jalisco drug cartel Local gangs have been fighting for control of Michoacán for years, and the situation has become so militarized that the warring gangs are using roadside bombs or IEDs, trenches, pillbox fortifications, homemade armored vehicles, and sniper rifles.

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantesalso known as “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco cartel, which officials described as “one of the most violent and prolific drug trafficking organizations in the world.” The United States and the State Department offered A $10 million reward In order to arrest him.

In the previous detail only Report on gang bomb attacks In August 2023, the Defense Ministry said at the time that a total of 42 soldiers, police officers and suspects were injured by IEDs in the first seven-and-a-half months of 2023, up from 16 in all of 2022.

The army said in a statement that 556 explosive devices of all types – roadside, drone and car bombs – were found in 2023. press release last year.