Radio Havana, Cuba | Mexican president blames USA for increasing violence by drug cartels

Mexico City, September 21 (RHC) – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the United States is partly responsible for the increasing violence by the Sinaloa cartel that has claimed dozens of lives in the past week.

Last week's “instability and clashes” that left 53 people dead in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa were the result of a “totally illegal” operation by U.S. forces, Lopez Obrador said during his morning press conference.

About 51 other people have been missing since clashes between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel began on September 9, and the brutal violence seems to have no end in sight.

The conflict between the two most powerful factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, a drug gang, began in July, when the top dealer and leader of one of these groups, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, was arrested in the United States.

Zambada claims that a high-ranking member of Los Chapitos, another faction of the cartel, kidnapped him and flew him to the United States against his will.

Since fighting broke out on September 9, shootings have disrupted daily life in the capital, Culiacán. On some days, schools had to remain closed and restaurants and shops closed early.

Lopez Obrador said the United States bore part of the responsibility for the violence “because it carried out this operation” to arrest Zambada. He said the arrest “triggered the confrontation that is now taking place in Sinaloa.”

The US ambassador to Mexico City, Ken Salazar, denied that his country was responsible for the cartels' violence. “When it is said that the United States, we, are responsible for what is happening in Sinaloa or other places, I do not agree,” Salazar said from Ciudad Juárez, according to Mexican media reports.