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Wild Gun Battle Kills 4 Bystanders in Mexican Border City

A wild running gun battle between Mexican soldiers and gunmen in the border city of Reynosa resulted in the deaths of four bystanders after a military vehicle took a spray of gunfire and crashed into a taco stand.

The dead were apparently customers at the taco stand in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. They included a 20-year-old mother and her 4-month-old baby.

Four other bystanders were wounded, as were an unspecified number of army personnel.

The government of the northern state of Tamaulipas said Thursday in a press statement that it regretted the deaths, and blamed the gunmen for the attack.

The army patrol was pursuing a five-vehicle convoy of armed suspects late Wednesday when a sport utility vehicle unexpectedly joined the confrontation.

Occupants of the SUV shot out the windshield of a military patrol truck and crashed into it. The force of the impact and the loss of visibility from the shot-out windshield led the military vehicle to crash into the stand and two nearby vehicles.

Photos showed the metal stand with a tin roof was nearly collapsed by the force of the crash.

The gunmen in the SUV fled, but police found eight rifles in the vehicle.

Reynosa is dominated by factions of the Gulf drug cartel, which has been known for mounting large-scale, sophisticated attacks on law enforcement and military personnel.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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