An improvised landmine apparently planted by a drug cartel killed two Mexican soldiers and wounded five others, Mexico’s defense minister said Tuesday. Before the explosion, soldiers discovered the dismembered bodies of three people, officials said.
General Ricardo Trevilla acknowledged that the army had already suffered six deaths from such improvised explosive devices (IEDs) between 2018 and 2024. However, he did not specify whether those six had been killed by bombs dropped by drones or by buried roadside bombs, both of which were used by gangs in Mexico.
Trevilla said devices like the one that exploded Monday were “very rustic” and that officials in the past had described them as resembling buried pipe bombs. There was no immediate information on the condition of the five people injured in the attack, including at least one officer.
Trevilla’s description of the location where the two soldiers died Monday in the western state Michoacan suggested that it may have been some kind of grisly booby trap set up by the drug cartel.
Trevilla said the army had sent out a patrol to investigate reports that there was a camp of armed men in a rural area. The forces discovered a palisade-protected area that appeared to be an encampment. But as soldiers approached in vehicles, they found the path was blocked by tree trunks, so they had to dismount and approach on foot.
As they approached, they discovered three dismembered bodies near the camp, which appeared to be abandoned. But as they got closer, a buried device exploded, hitting the soldiers.
Trevilla blamed the explosion on the United Cartels, an umbrella organization that includes the local Viagras gang, which has waged bloody turf wars against the Jalisco Cartel in Michoacan for years.
In August, the Mexican army admitted that some of its soldiers had been killed Bomb-dropping drones operated by drug cartels.
Officials had previously said the army was experiencing far more roadside bombs than drone-dropped bombs.
The Jalisco drug cartel has been fighting local gangs for control of Michoacan for years, and the situation has become so militarized that the rival cartels use roadside bombs, or IEDs, trenches, bunker fortifications, homemade armored vehicles and sniper rifles.
Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantesalso known as “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco Cartel, which officials described as “one of the most violent and prolific drug trafficking organizations in the world.” The United States and the State Department have offered one $10 million reward for his capture.
Detailed in the only previous one Cartel Bombing Report In August 2023, the Defense Ministry said at the time that a total of 42 soldiers, police officers and suspects were injured by IEDs in the first seven and a half months of 2023, up from 16 in all of 2022.
A total of 556 improvised explosive devices of all types – roadside, drone and car bombs – were found in 2023, the army said in a statement Press release last year.
