An improvised landmine apparently planted by a drug cartel killed two Mexican soldiers and injured five others, Mexico’s defense minister said Tuesday. Before the blast, soldiers had discovered the dismembered bodies of three people, officials said.
Gen. Ricardo Trevilla acknowledged that the military had already suffered six deaths from such improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, between 2018 and 2024. But he did not specify whether those six were killed by bombs dropped by drones or by buried roadside bombs. , both of which have been used by gangs in Mexico.
Trevilla said devices like the one that exploded Monday were “very rustic,” and officials have described them in the past as similar to buried pipe bombs. There was no immediate information on the conditions of the five injured in the attack, including at least one officer.
Trevilla’s description of the location where the two soldiers died Monday in the western state Michoacan suggested it might be some kind of creepy drug cartel booby trap.
Trevilla said the army had sent out a patrol to check reports that there was an encampment of armed men in a rural area. The forces discovered an area protected by palisades that appeared to be an encampment, but when soldiers in vehicles approached they found the path blocked by tree trunks, so they descended and had to approach on foot.
As they approached, they saw three dismembered bodies near the encampment, which appeared to be abandoned. But as they got closer, a buried device exploded and hit the soldiers.
Trevilla blamed the United Cartels, an umbrella group that includes the local Viagras gang, which has been waging bloody battles against the Jalisco Cartel in Michoacan for years.
In August, the Mexican army acknowledged that some of its soldiers had been killed drones that drop bombs operated by drug cartels.
Previously, officials have said the military encounters far more roadside bombs than drone-dropped bombs.
The Jalisco drug cartel has been fighting local gangs for control of Michoacan for years, and the situation has become so militarized that the warring cartels use roadside bombs or IEDs, trenches, bunker 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 have offered a $10 million reward for his capture.
In the only previous detailed report on cartel bombings in August 2023, the Defense Ministry said at the time that a total of 42 soldiers, police and suspects were injured by IEDs in the first seven and a half months of 2023, up from 16 in 2023. all of 2022.
A total of 556 improvised explosive devices of all types – roadside bombs, drones and car bombs – were found in 2023, the army said in a press release last year.
