Nogales drug shootout leaves 10 dead

NOGALES, Mexico, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Mexican police say 10 suspected members of a drug gang died in a shootout in the border city of Nogales that also left eight people injured.

Police told reporters the suspects at one point threw hand grenades at pursuing officers before their sport utility vehicle plowed into the wall of a jail, killing four people in the vehicle, the Arizona Republic reported Thursday.

U.S. law enforcement officials have noticed an increase in violence in Sonora due to outsiders challenging the control the so-called Sinola cartel has held in Nogales for several years, the newspaper said.

The running gun battle began Thursday morning when Sonora state police stopped an SUV for a routine inspection. A second SUV pulled up, shots were fired and both vehicles sped off with police in hot pursuit, police told the Tucson Citizen.

The incident in the city, located across the border from Arizona, was the latest dramatic incident in a surge of violence from the powerful smuggling rings operating along Mexico's northern frontier.

The San Diego Union-Tribune said Thursday that a 4-year-old boy was killed Wednesday night when the SUV his father was driving was caught up in a shootout between traffickers and police. It was not clear if the child died of a gunshot wound or from injures suffered when his father struck another vehicle.