Eight killed in rare Mexico City gun battle

MEXICO CITY - 21 July 2017: Marines killed eight alleged drug traffickers in a rare Mexico City gun battle on Thursday - and presumed gang members retaliated by burning vehicles in unprecedented unrest in the country's safest city.

The troops killed the suspects, including an alleged drug lord, in a raid in the eastern Tlahuac neighborhood of the sprawling metropolis of some 21 million.

"Felipe de Jesus 'N' was head of an extremely violent criminal organization" that operated in eastern Mexico City, the navy said in a statement, referring to an alleged drug trafficker nicknamed "El Ojos" ("The Eyes").

Hundreds of police and soldiers rushed to Tlahuac in vans and armored vehicles when the shooting broke out. A military helicopter buzzed overhead, providing aerial intelligence.

However a swarm of unidentified motorcyclists and people driving motorcycle taxis sped around the nearby streets creating havoc.

Local TV aired footage of eight motorcyclists cornering a small bus and forcing the driver and passengers to exit. The assailants then set the bus on fire.

Separately, a cluster of motorcycle taxis -- which witnesses said are driven by people working for crime gangs -- blocked streets and clashed with police in unrest that dragged into the night.

Gun battles between security forces and criminals are common in places like the western state of Sinaloa or the northern states of Tamaulipas and Chihuahua, where drug cartels are well entrenched.

Mexico City however has been spared this sort of unrest.

- Unprecedented violence -

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera has said repeatedly that the powerful drug cartels do not operate in the capitaly.

He told Televisa TV that the Tlahuac raid had been planned "for more than seven months," and that the crime gang targeted was not in the same league as the larger cartels.

"That doesn't mean that they aren't dangerous and that they aren't violent," Mancera said.

The navy statement said that military-grade weapons were found at the scene of the gun battle.

The shooting broke out when Marines carrying out intelligence operations came across "groups of retail drug dealers" who are also presumably "involved in extortion, kidnapping and homicides," the statement read.

Mexico, with a population of around 123 million, has seen a surge of deadly violence in recent months extending to areas once considered relatively safe.

Nationwide murders hit a record high in May: 2,186 homicides, an average of 70 a day and the most since the country began keeping track 20 years ago.

More than 200,000 people have been reported dead or missing since the military was deployed to fight organized crime in 2006, as rival cartels wage war on each other and the security forces.