Dumping of 35 bodies seen as challenge to Zetas

VERACRUZ, Mexico — A gang known to be aligned with Mexico's most-wanted drug lord appears to be making a violent challenge to the dominant cartel and Mexican officials in the Gulf state of Veracruz, dumping 35 bodies on a busy avenue in front of horrified motorists near where the nation's top prosecutors were about to start a convention.

The cartel known as the New Generation unloaded the bound, seminude, tortured bodies during rush hour Tuesday as part of a several-month campaign to take the strategic port of Veracruz now controlled by the Zetas drug gang, an official in the Mexican armed forces told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

All 35 victims, who included 12 women and two minors, were linked to the Zetas cartel, said the official, who couldn't be quoted by name for security reasons.

It was the first official acknowledgment of who may have carried out the attack after a banner left at the scene threatened the Zetas and bore the initials "G.N."

A U.S. law enforcement official said the New Generation is believed to be linked to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, widely considered the world's wealthiest drug trafficker.

But the U.S. official, who also could not be quoted by name for security reasons, said it would be surprising to see heavy involvement in Veracruz by Guzman or his Sinaloa cartel, which is based in the Pacific coast state of the same name on the other side of Mexico.

"We don't have anything that corroborates or disputes" that the body dumping was linked to Guzman, the U.S. official said, adding that other sources say the Gulf Cartel could have been responsible. "Sometimes these criminal groups blame the other guys."

Drug trafficking in Veracruz was long controlled by the Gulf Cartel. But the business has been taken over by the Zetas, who had acted as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel before breaking away in early 2010 and waging a bloody war with their former allies across northeastern Mexico.

The Zetas presence in Veracruz has grown since the government launched a crackdown late last year in their main base of Tamaulipas, a border state to the north. But the gang has also been hit hard in Veracruz by Mexican army and navy operations, leaving them weakened and vulnerable to challenges from rival gangs, the Mexican military official said.

This Gulf coast city is Mexico's busiest port for commercial goods.