© Josue Gonzalez / ReutersA federal police officer stands guard next to a crime scene in the municipality of Cadereyta Sunday. Authorities found the dismembered bodies of 49 people stuffed into bags and dumped on a highway near the northern city of Monterrey.
The mutilated corpses of 43 men and six women, whose hands and feet had also been cut off, were found in a pile on a highway in the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez in the early hours of Sunday, officials from the state of Nuevo Leon said.
"What's complicating the identification of all the people was that they were all headless," said Jorge Domene, the Nuevo Leon government's spokesman for public security, who said the other body parts were missing.
Domene said the brutal Zetas drug gang claimed responsibility for the murders in a message found at the scene.
The massacre was the latest in a string of mass slayings that have convulsed Mexico in recent months, many of them in the north of the country, where the Zetas have waged a war against rival groups for control of smuggling routes.
The Zetas gang was founded by deserters from the Mexican army who became enforcers for the Gulf cartel, which once dominated the drug trade in northeastern Mexico. Leaders of the Zetas later split from their employers and the two gangs have since fought for control of trafficking routes.
The Zetas have also been at war with the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
President Felipe Calderon has staked his reputation on bringing Mexico's drug gangs to heel, sending in the army to fight them shortly after taking office in December 2006.
Since then, however, the violence has spiralled, and more than 50,000 people have fallen victim to the conflict.
Mexican security analyst Alberto Islas said the latest bloodbath was a sign the federal and state governments were failing to get the upper hand. "They're fighting across the whole country with complete impunity," he said. "The government has to send out a very clear signal they will stop the violence and find those responsible."
The war on drugs is a crock of sh*t.
The blame for this can be laid correctly at the feet of the idiot who introduced it,he had his attention distracted due to covertly recording his election opponents.
The wars not working,but ego's combined with a prison industrial complex won't permit any deviation.