Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday that the U.S. was partly responsible for the eruption of drug cartel violence that has killed at least 30 people in the past week in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa.
The violence was ignited by the July arrest of reclusive Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada in Texas, Lopez Obrador said.
He also said the “instability and clashes” that Sinaloa was now facing were the result of the arrest in what he said was a “totally illegal” operation.
Washington has denied that it played any part in Zambada’s capture.
In a letter distributed by his lawyer, Zambada said he was kidnapped by Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of the imprisoned former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and was brought to the U.S. in a small plane. When the plane landed near El Paso, Texas, U.S. authorities arrested him. The younger Guzman was also detained by the U.S.
The U.S. had been seeking Zambada for years on drug-trafficking and other charges.
Zambada and El Chapo are alleged to have been drug cartel partners. El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison on several drug-related charges.
Authorities say they believe Zambada’s arrest cast two factions against each other: those loyal to El Chapo and his sons versus those loyal to Zambada. The two groups have taken their armed battles to the streets of Culiacan, Sinaloa’s capital.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
