Mexico gives account of violence after 'Chapo' son nabbed

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The operation to detain Ovidio Guzman, the son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, unleashed a running firefight in the northern city of Culiacan that killed 10 military personnel and 19 suspected members of the Sinaloa drug cartel.

In a blow-by-blow description Friday, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval described a battle that resembled a war: cartel gunmen opened fire on troops with .50 caliber machine guns, and the army responded by calling in Blackhawk helicopter gunships to attack a convoy of 25 cartel vehicles, including truck-mounted cartel gun platforms.

The cartel then opened fire on the military aircraft, forcing two of them down with “a significant number of impacts” in each of the two aircraft, Sandoval said. The gang then sent hordes of gunmen to attack fixed-wing aircraft, both military and civilian, at the city’s international airport.

One civilian airliner was hit; the gunmen also shot up airport buildings in a bid to prevent authorities from flying the capture cartel boss out of the city. But Sandoval said that, anticipating the resistance, authorities had immediately loaded Ovidio Guzman onto a military helicopter to fly him directly back to Mexico City.

Culiacan residents posted video on social media showing convoys of gunmen in pickup trucks and SUVs rolling down boulevards in the city on Thursday. At least one convoy included a flatbed truck with a mounted gun in the back, the same kind of vehicle that caused chaos and mayhem in the 2019 unrest.

All entrances to the city were blocked and similar acts played out in other parts of Sinaloa.

Rev. Esteban Robles, spokesman for the Roman Catholic diocese in Culiacan, said Thursday that “there is an atmosphere of uncertainty, tension,” and that those who could...