Gunmen have shot dead three men and burned their bodies to warn off rivals in an escalating drug war on Mexico's U.S. border that has claimed 16 victims this month, according to Reuters. Firemen found the bodies of the three men late on Thursday in the trunk of a burning sport utility vehicle in Nuevo Laredo, which lies over the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. Two of the men were handcuffed. The city of 300,000 people is on the front line of a war between traffickers from the western Mexican state of Sinaloa and the local cartel for control of the lucrative cross-border trade in cocaine, heroin and marijuana. The spiraling conflict has left 16 people dead in the city so far this year. The killers doused the bodies of five of the victims with gasoline and burned them, a favored tactic by the warring cartels designed to spread terror, police said according to Reuters. Violence along Mexico's northern border has increased since President Vicente Fox launched a major battle on drug cartels and organized crime a year ago. Fox temporarily suspended Nuevo Laredo's police force and ordered the army on to the streets last June, after the city's newly appointed public security chief was gunned down on the day of his appointment. The U.S. State Department has issued several travel alerts for Nuevo Laredo in the past year, warning that drug-related violence was getting out of hand in border cities. --SP 00 05 Local Time 21 05 GMT
