Presumed drug-trafficking hitmen attacked a Mexican Army convoy on Monday with a landmine in the Tierra Caliente region, in the state of Michoacán, in the west of the country, one of the most convulsive areas in the country.
The XLIII Military Zone, based in the municipality of Apatzingán, the main town in Tierra Caliente, reported that the explosion occurred this Monday morning on a dirt road located between the municipalities of Aguililla , Tepalcatepec and Coalcomán.
The mine detonated in the wake of a Mexican-made armored and artillery tactical vehicle used by the Army in intelligence operations and against organized crime, mainly for the capture of drug traffickers.
The explosion caused severe damage to the structure vehicle and left four soldiers injured, one of them seriously.
Army personnel, expert in handling of explosives, was sent to the area to determine if there are signs of the existence of more mines.
The drug dispute in Tierra Caliente
The Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and the National Guard lead the police-military deployment by towns of at least six municipalities of the Earth Caliente, which have been occupied by groups of assassins at the service of four drug cartels.
The criminal organizations that dispute the region are the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Tepalcatepec, Los Caballeros Templarios and The Nueva Familia Michoacana, whose assassins maintain a bloody struggle for control of drug production and trafficking, as well as illicit activities such as kidnapping and extortion of businessmen, farmers and ranchers.
Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, governor of Michoacán, reported that the advance of the police and military forces will not cease to reopen roads and highways taken over by the drug cartels in Tierra Caliente, where in the last year the forced shift of ones 10,000 settlers.
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