Graphic — Cartel Gunmen Ambush Mexican Police Forces near Texas Border

MIGUEL ALEMAN, Tamaulipas — Four cartel gunmen died in a fierce battle in this border city after a failed ambush on state police forces. 

The shootout took place this week in the downtown area of  Miguel Aleman when a team of Gulf Cartel gunmen set up an ambush on Tamaulipas State Police forces, law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas. The police officers fought off the initial attack, pushing the gunmen back and called for backup from Mexican military forces. 

The gun battle soon spread to other neighborhoods, eventually coming to an end in Barrera where police officers killed four cartel gunmen riding a black pickup. The rest managed to escape even though military forces carried out a series search operations to locate the fleeing cartel gunmen. 

The skirmish is the latest of an ongoing series of clashes where Gulf Cartel gunmen target state police officers. Unlike other parts of Mexico, in Reynosa, state police officers are leading the charge against cartel forces. For more than a year, the northern part of Tamaulipas has been a war zone where rival factions of the Gulf Cartel fight for control of lucrative drug trafficking and human smuggling routes. The ongoing fighting has led to more than 500 murders in a year–only in Reynosa. 

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Tamaulipas.