A pair of shootouts between troops and gunmen in northern Mexico have killed 13 people, including a bystander and a drug trafficker linked to the killing of a retired army officer, AP reported. Navy spokesman Adm. Jose Luis Vergara said troops were searching a villa Friday in a suburb of Monterrey named Juarez when they were ambushed by a group of heavily armed men. Eight gunmen were killed and nine more were arrested in the initial shootout, Vergara said. Television images showed a garden littered with bloodied corpses. Several handcuffed men sat on the ground with shirts pulled over their heads and a line of automatic rifles nearby. Vergara said soldiers had gone to the villa to check an intelligence report that suspected drug trafficker Ricardo Almanza Morales was there. He said one soldier was wounded and is in stable condition. Almanza Morales was killed in the attack. --SPA
