US not responsible for rise in violence in Sinaloa, US ambassador tells Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar has rejected accusations by Mexico’s president that the United States is partly responsible for an upsurge in cartel warfare in northern Sinaloa over the weekend.

Sinaloa has been overshadowed by violence as two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital, Culiacan. It appears to be a power struggle after two cartel leaders were arrested in the US in late July.

“It is incomprehensible how the United States can be responsible for the massacres that we are seeing in different places,” Salazar said at a news conference in Chihuahua on Saturday. “What we are seeing in Sinaloa is not the fault of the United States.”

The arrests shocked many as it appeared that the son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman had kidnapped a senior cartel figure, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, and flown them both to the U.S. to be held there. Such an outburst of violence was to be expected following the arrests.

As warring cartel factions and authorities have locked fire, helicopters regularly circle overhead and military personnel roam the streets of the capital. Families have said they are afraid to send their children to school.

Meanwhile, bodies have turned up all over the city, often left in the streets or in cars with sombreros on their heads or pizza slices or boxes pinned to them with knives. The pizzas and sombreros have become informal symbols for the warring cartel factions, underscoring the brutality of their warfare.

At least 53 people have been killed and 51 are missing since fighting began in Sinaloa state as of Friday, local authorities said.

On Thursday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador partly blamed U.S. authorities for the bloodshed.

When asked during his morning briefing whether the U.S. government was “collectively responsible” for the violence in Sinaloa, the president replied, “Yes, of course … for carrying out this operation.”

“If we are now experiencing instability and clashes in Sinaloa, it is because (the U.S. government) made that decision,” López Obrador said.

López Obrador claimed that US authorities “carried out that operation” to capture Zambada and that “it was completely illegal, and that agents from the Ministry of Justice were waiting for Mr. Mayo.”

Salazar previously denied that US officials were involved in the alleged kidnapping.

It was the latest blow to bilateral relations between the two regional allies.

Last month, López Obrador, a quick-to-criticize populist, said he was putting ties with the U.S. and Canadian embassies “on pause” after ambassadors criticized his controversial plan to overhaul Mexico’s judiciary by requiring all judges to run for election.

Still, Zambada’s arrest has drawn criticism of López Obrador, who has refused to crack down on the cartels throughout his time in office and has falsely claimed that the cartels respect Mexican citizens and fight primarily among themselves.

Under López Obrador, who is due to leave office at the end of the month, cartels have deployed an expanding arsenal of weapons and tactics, including roadside bombs, trenches, homemade armored vehicles and bomb-dropping drones. The criminal organizations have also moved into new industries such as migrant smuggling and the lucrative avocado business.

While Mexican authorities said Saturday they had sent 600 additional troops to Sinaloa as reinforcements, Salazar blamed the broader security crisis in Mexico for the increase in violence in the state.

“The reality is that there is a problem of insecurity and violence in Mexico,” Salazar said.